Blackbird
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Stricken with guilt at the part that he played in his classmate Even's suicide, Lumaira attends the dead boy's funeral, to find that he may have a second chance after all. Mentions of suicide/self harm, 411 in later chapters. Inconsistent; complete.
1. Chapter 1

It was raining as they walked outside to see the coffin be lowered into the ground and left until later to be covered when the weather had improved. Aside from the undertakers, there were just two of them overseeing the final goodbyes: Lumaira, and the dead boy's mother.

"One of Even's friends, are you?"

Lumaira found himself frowning beneath his sodden hair that was beginning to break loose from the respectfully neat ponytail he'd tied it up into.

"Even didn't _have_ friends," he muttered, then mentally added - _Why do you think he's in a coffin?_ The resentment welled up inside him, stabbing him with guilt. Why was Even dead? Because of Lumaira and all his friends. They'd driven him to... to... closing his eyes, Lumaira unwillingly recalled the image of the broken body, blood everywhere. He'd thought that maybe going to Even's funeral would console him a little, make things okay by paying his respects to the body. But it didn't. How many people had turned up? A dozen at a push? Lumaira had hoped that joining in with the mourning would settle his aching conscience, but nobody _was_ mourning. The truth hurt more than the death itself - nobody had ever cared about the boy called Even Carlisle. And now he was dead.

Even's mother dropped a wilting rose onto the top of the coffin, six feet below, and left Lumaira alone to battle his regret. Nothing helped the horrible thought that he was a murderer. He'd not been the worst, not by far, but he'd been one of _them_, one of the boys who had bullied and bullied and bullied Even and driven him to bloody, desperate suicide. Somehow Lumaira knew that seeing Even's dead body that first time, even knowing that if he hadn't thought to sneak upstairs and draw on his face with a marker then the boy would have lain there in his own blood for more than a week, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

_Life_.

Oh God, Lumaira thought, not for the first time. Even was dead. Even the loner, the one nobody liked, the butt of all the jokes, the nerd with thick rimmed glasses and braces... (did they take braces off somebody when they died?) The kid who always knew all the answers even though he never spoke (why did they call him a loudmouth all the time, then, if he never spoke? Or did he never speak _because_ they always called him a loudmouth?). The one who Lumaira had realised with a jolt was so awfully, terribly, painfully thin even though everyone teased him for being a "fatty", with a pale face and sunken eyes and an always down-turned mouth.

Lumaira knelt in the mud and watched the rain pitter patter on the cheap wood of the coffin until the night drew in and became cold. He thought about Even at the start of school, a chubby little kid with boggle eyes who always screamed at everybody for the slightest misdeed and who got kicked in every other week for some idiotic offence.

Then he thought about the Even who silently took the brunt of every cutting remark, who collapsed once in class and almost raised the concerns of the teachers, who two weeks later was found cold and dead with slit wrists and no last words by the very boys who pushed him over the edge.

Lumaira wanted to scream, take it all back, bring the stiff body back to life just to apologise, say that it was okay because _somebody_ still loved Even - except that if anybody did, they certainly hadn't turned up to the funeral. The only one shedding tears was Even's mother, but what kind of parent could she be to not even notice the state of her own son?

* * *

It must have been approaching eleven o'clock when Lumaira thought he heard a noise somewhere far below him. He'd only been half-listening, too wrapped up in his own morbid thoughts of Even, but he was certain that he'd heard a distinct knock from the coffin. He listened out intently, suddenly wide awake in the darkness. Sure enough, a minute or so later, came three sharp wooden raps in quick succession from the same location. Slowly, ever so slowly, with every cheap horror movie he'd ever seen coming back to haunt him, Lumaira rocked forwards on his toes and peered into the grave. There was the coffin lying as still as predictably ever, the rose lying wet and limp on top.

Silence.

Another knock came, louder, and there was no mistaking as to its source. Lumaira flew backwards from the gaping hole onto his backside, fighting back a horrified shriek. He glanced nervously around, wondering if he was dreaming some sick nightmare, but there were no zombies rising from any of the other graves, just the steady knock, knock, knock and splinter of wood from inside the single remaining open grave.

Lumaira stayed tense, ready to run, until the sounds simply stopped completely. He waited a few minutes, then let himself lean over and peer down into the grave, heart beating a million to the dozen. At first he saw nothing, until his peripheral vision caught the movement of four pale, bony fingers forcing their way out of a crack between the coffin and the lid and gripping the wood for dear life.

Lumaira screamed and fell backwards into a dead faint.

* * *

Even, truth be told, hadn't expected to wake up. He didn't want to; he'd been looking forward to the numb coldness of death for a long time. So when he found himself lying in a dark box which was presumably a coffin, it was basic survival instinct that had him press his shoulder against the lid in an attempt to escape. It didn't feel heavy. So he hadn't been buried yet. It was badly enough made - like anybody would bother spending money on _him_ - so after a minute or two he managed to push his hand out and grope around for a hold against which to lever up the lid. It was distant, but he was sure that he heard a shriek up on the surface with half awakeness, or maybe only half aliveness.

He forced the coffin open eventually, instantly feeling better with the rush of cold, fresh air. It didn't occur to him to be shocked that he'd either been inexplicably buried alive, or even more inexplicably had risen from the dead. He'd get out and onto the surface first and freak out later. It took him a while to crawl shakily out of the grave, and a lot of mud soon covered his starched white shirt and neat trousers. There was a boy that Even dimly recognised from a swimmingly distant life, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. He was definitely alive - which was more than Even was certain he could say for himself. He was tempted to just leave the boy there, but it was obvious that he'd been watching over Even's grave. Curious by nature, Even wanted to know why. So he crouched down and shook him awake. He was a mess, screaming and stumbling and moaning apologies before Even even had a chance to open his mouth. Leaving the boy to his apparent insanity, he took the opportunity to glance around. Everything was saturated by water. There were no flowers bar the dying rose; all that lay by his grave was shovels and spades. And, of course, the curiously mad rose haired boy.

"Hey," He said, and the boy screamed again, scrabbling madly to get away from Even. He quickly caught the boy's thicker, darker wrist as he tried to summon up a name for the half familiar face.

"It's Lumaira, right?"

Lumaira would not calm down. Frozen though he was like a deer in headlights, he was screaming at the top of his lungs until each cry became a whimper - then he would inhale deeply, and scream again. Then Even realised that he was supposed to be dead.

"Oh," He said quietly and looked down at his bony, deathly pale body.

"You're _dead_," Lumaira hissed in a strangled voice. "I _saw_ you. You were _dead_."

"Well," Even replied thoughtfully, the truth only really occurring to him now, "I guess I got better."

Lumaira lifted a shaking hand to press his fingers against Even's cold neck as he searched for a pulse. There it was, a steady if faint rhythmic drumbeat of life. His hand fell back to the ground, mind numbed by the realisation of an impossible situation he had never even considered he'd experience.

"I'm sorry," He mumbled eventually. "I'm so sorry. I should have said something. I should have-"

Recollections of heartbreak, isolation and death swam to the forefront of Even's mind.

"It wasn't your fault," He replied evenly, the emotionlessness of death still faintly blurring his pain, "It's not your fault I'm ugly and uptight and utterly dislikeable."

Lumaira sobbed again and rocked forwards to pull Even into a painfully desperate embrace.

"Don't say that," He cried. "Nobody deserves to think that about themselves,"

Even had thought that for as long as he could remember and shrugged a little, not knowing any different, and feeling awkward at the sudden proximity of another human being. He happened to glance down at his open grave, the coffin slowly pooling with rain water.

"I should go back."

"_No_," Lumaira managed through his fits of terrified, remorseful tears.

"It's not like there's any place for me up here."

"But you'd just be lying there," Lumaira moaned. "Forever."

"I won't be alive," Even patiently explained. "I'll kill myself again. It won't take much."

"You came back once," Lumaira insisted, his grip tightening further. "What if it happened again? Once they fill it in, you'll never get out. Nobody would hear you. _Forever_."

Even had to admit that Lumaira was right; as depressing as life seemed to be, being trapped in a coffin until he stayed dead was quite possibly worse. So he nodded a little in acknowledgement and pulled the panic stricken Lumaira away from him, standing carefully. Everything was fuzzy, even accounting for his terrible eyesight, and his limbs seemed to be surprised that all of a sudden they were being asked to work again. It wasn't long before he lost his balance and would have toppled right back into the grave if Lumaira hadn't been there to catch him.

"Have my coat."

"I'm fine."

"You must be freezing."

Even looked at the smart jacket that Lumaira had worn for his funeral, and then down at his own saturated, muddy attire.

"Okay. Fine."

Lumaira swung the coat over his shoulders and helped him out of the graveyard into the dark road down which few cars were passing. Slowly, they made their way around narrow alleyways and down twisting roads, opting for a longer, less busy route should anybody see Even's dead appearance or worse, recognise him. Eventually they reached Lumaira's house through the back garden. Even was barely able to stand, bony knees shaking uncontrollably as Lumaira took him inside.

"Right," Lumaira said, settling Even down on the sofa and pulling his rugged hair loose from its pony tail so it hung limply around his face. Here in the bright light of indoors, Even looked even more frail and lifeless than before, and as Lumaira realised with a jolt, just the same as he did when he was alive. "I'll... um... I'll run you a bath, and then you can sleep on the sofa tonight."  
Even drew his arms around himself and said nothing. Lumaira shuffled uncomfortably under his piercing, slightly unfocused glare.

"Look, Even... I'm so sorry. Really, I am."

"It's not your fault," Even insisted again. "Just because I killed myself doesn't mean you're to blame."

Lumaira realised that he was tormenting the hem of his jacket and forced himself to relax a little, hard as it was with a dead boy perched awkwardly on the sofa in front of him.

"I found you, you know," He blurted out suddenly, feeling the need to confess. "We had your keys so we snuck into the house. And then I went upstairs and I found you."

Even glanced uncomfortably away.

"I was sort of hoping it'd be my parents," He admitted. "A week and a half later and I'd already be rotting."

"That's awful," Lumaira murmured, although in which respect he didn't say.

"They never cared," Even scoffed. "If they'd cared they might have bothered to ask if I was okay every once in a while, or made sure that I'd eat every day. But they didn't, because I wasn't pretty or sociable enough to mean anything to them."

Lumaira realised that he was crying again, and furiously bit at his lip.

"I'm so sorry," He said again, sitting next to Even and holding him close with the autonomy of his naturally tactile personality.

"Stop apologising for my own decisions," Even huffed, effectively stalling the conversation.

"What's it like?" Lumaira felt compelled to ask after a while of uneasy silence. "To be dead, I mean."

Even looked at him with an expression of faint disapproval.

"I don't know," He said bluntly. "I was dead."

"I mean, no white lights or tunnels or angels in dresses or anything?"

"No."

"What did it feel like?" Lumaira pressed.

"It felt like passing out from blood loss and not waking up again," Even answered unhelpfully.  
"But you did wake up," Lumaira said. Then the conversation became awkward again and he felt compelled to stand up and take Even to the bathroom. He was desperately in need of cleaning up, and then tucking into bed with a hot water bottle for a very long time. And some plasters for the grazes on his delicate skin and reopening wounds. He sat the boy down on the stool and then ran the bath in silence and helped Even in.

"Are you okay?"

"I feel awful."

Lumaira considered this at length.

"I'm not surprised."

"No."

They lapsed into silence yet again. This, unfortunately, gave Lumaira a chance to think about what had happened. Even, the boy who had killed himself just over a month ago, wasn't dead. He looked it, leaning against the bath as stark as the white ceramic itself, but he was breathing softly still and every so often his bony hand would twitch a little as though it were worried that if it didn't move it would simply die again. For some reason, somebody up there had given him a second chance.

Pale, dangerously thin, wrists and arms welted with self inflicted cuts; Lumaira closed his eyes and tried to imagine the pain that Even must have gone through both physically and emotionally in the months before he died. He couldn't.

"Lumaira?"

Lumaira snapped back to the present to look at Even with panicked eyes. Something about Even's tone of voice wasn't right. Almost... scared.

"Yeah?"

"I... I think I'm going to die again."

Even lifted one grey hand out of the water where the slits on his wrist had reopened and were beginning to ooze blood. Lumaira's hands flew to his mouth and tears pressed again at the corners of his eyes.

"I'll get bandages," He said, and rushed to the medicine cabinet. "Just hang on, I'll sort something out. You'll be fine."

"It's okay," Even said with a weak smile that broke Lumaira's heart. "This is what I want, remember?"

"It's not what _I_ want!" Lumaira screamed. "Do you think that I _want_ to be responsible for your death, _again_?"

He forcibly grabbed Even's arm, cleaning it up with an antiseptic wipe that made the boy wince, then tightly bandaging the wound.

"You're got your whole life ahead of you," He insisted. "You can't just let a bunch of brainless idiots ruin that,"

Even had already passed out. But he was still alive, and Lumaira made that be enough as he lifted the boy out of the bath, dried him down and dressed him in his softest pair of pyjamas, and tucked him up in bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Lumaira woke the next morning after a fitful night to find Even quietly inspecting a book that had been lying on his bedside table and looking much healthier than he had last night. His skin was still pale, almost papery it looked so easy to break, but his cheeks had an encouraging little flush of pink across them and even his breathing seemed to be more solid, chest steadily rising and falling. Even didn't seem to notice Lumaira uncurl from the chair next to the bed, peering intently as he was at the back cover, lips parting a little every time he mouthed a word he couldn't quite make out. So Lumaira coughed pointedly, hoping to attract the other boy's attention.

"Hey."

Even glanced up and set the book back on the side.

"Good morning."

"How do you feel?" Lumaira asked, cracking his neck as Even carefully flexed a little life back into his fingers.

"Better. But that's not exactly hard."

Lumaira nodded encouragingly.

"That's good." He said, ever so gently laying a hand on Even's shoulder. "I'll go make us something for breakfast before mum comes back."

Even seemed to tense a little at the mention of a parental figure, but nodded silently.

"She's a nurse, you see," Lumaira explained. "She works night shifts at the hospital. Maybe she'll be able to fix up your cuts a bit."

Even didn't reply again, so Lumaira slipped out of the door, closing it softly behind him and tiptoeing downstairs. He was almost afraid to leave Even alone in case he tried to hurt himself again, but he supposed that the boy must've had a chance before he'd woken up, and if he hadn't then then hopefully he wouldn't now.

Breakfast came in the form of toast and boiled eggs because Lumaira supposed that Even would want - or if not want, at least need - something filling. He was perfectly used to cooking for two, often leaving breakfast out for his mother for when she came home in the morning. Balancing two cups of tea and two full plates up the stairs was an interesting affair, though, and eventually have gave up and carried everything on a tray, setting Even's carefully down on his lap.

"Here."

Even fumbled a little in picking up the fork, and the thick-rimmed glasses suddenly popped into Lumaira's mind.

"You can use my mum's reading glasses, if you like."

"I don't think they'd do much good," Even replied sourly. "My eyesight is atrocious."

Lumaira felt too awkward to suggest the magnifying glass he had lying around in his room somewhere, and opted instead for watching Even eat his breakfast with more than a little difficulty. Eventually he did offer to cut up the toast into squares, though, which Even grudgingly agreed to.

"Thanks."

"It's okay. I'll get you some glasses or something this afternoon, if you'd like."

Even shook his head. "You'd have to get prescription. I can live without."

"Well... if you're sure."

"I might not live much longer anyway," Even whispered in a small, strangled voice. Lumaira felt his chest tighten.

"Don't say that," He insisted. "You're okay now."

"I still feel like hell," Even admitted.

Lumaira shivered involuntarily, feeling panic for Even take hold.

"I'll get my mum to have a look at you," He said. "She'll know what you need. Maybe you should go to the hospital too."

Even scowled and looked away.

"I don't want to go to the hospital. People will know I'm alive if I go to the hospital."

"Why's that such a bad thing?" Lumaira asked.

"They'll think it was a joke, won't they," Even hissed. "They'll think it was all some stupid hoax and they'll take me even less seriously than before."

Lumaira remembered seeing Even dead for the first time and vehemently shook his head.

"There were a dozen of us that saw you that night," He said. "We know that wasn't faked."

"Then how am I alive," Even replied bluntly, posing the question that both boys had been evading since last night. "How can I be alive again if I was dead before? How is that scientifically possible?"

A cough or maybe a sob bubbled up through Lumaira's throat and he realised that he'd begun to rock a little, back and forth on his seat. Back and forth, back and forth.

"I don't know," He said. "I don't know. You're the one who knows everything."

Even stiffened and suddenly Lumaira remembered all the taunts of _nerd, geek, teacher's pet, know it all_ that Even must have suffered through.

"H-hey. I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. I was just saying you're really smart."

Even's shoulders sagged and he pushed away his half-eaten breakfast, no appetite left.

"It's okay."

Lumaira felt the urge to hug Even but he restrained himself in the knowledge that it probably wasn't appropriate considering that he barely even knew the boy.

"You should eat that," He said instead, pointing to the leftover toast and egg. "You need to keep yourself healthy."

Even opened his mouth as though to argue, but Lumaira gave him a determined glare so he unwillingly pulled the tray back onto his lap and took a few bites.

"You must be starving," Lumaira, who'd already finished, said.

"A little," Even admitted, pushing toast around the plate with his fork. "But you sort of get used to it after a while."

Lumaira forced Even to finish every last mouthful.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Even slept fitfully. Lumaira's mother came home briefly, but had to leave for a meeting and didn't even have time to listen to Lumaira's confession that there was a dead boy in his room. It was disheartening, all of it was disheartening, because the longer Lumaira had to think about it the harder he realised saving Even's life would be. It wasn't just a one off thing like in the movies, a little speech and a hug that would make everything okay, it was like pulling Even up to the surface in the middle of the sea and knowing that there was the whole swim to the shore still to go.

And the worst thing was that, looking at the boy now, pale and unattractive, Even had good reasons backing what he did. His parents didn't care. His schoolmates bullied him incessantly. His friends? He didn't even have any. And he didn't have any because he wasn't sociable, because he was reclusive and intellectual, clumsy and unfashionable and not the sort of person anybody would be seen dead with, whoever he actually was deep down inside.

At one point, somewhere around midday, Lumaira had found himself carefully evaluating Even's face. After all, that was where it had started, wasn't it? In the first year of school, the fat kid with boggle eyes... he'd grown into his features a little more now. Sure, he had acne - just like every other teenage boy in the world - and he was already developing a little wrinkle between his eyebrows from frowning so much. But his high cheekbones and narrow jawline was just features, and the rest - insipid skin, sunken eyes and a haunted expression - was less to do with his actual appearance and more to do with his recent brush with death. He wasn't _that_ unattractive, really, just sort of... normal...

Lumaira closed his eyes and imagined Even but healthier, not overweight or terrifyingly thin, the tangles of his hair ironed out and his skin tanned to a more healthy shade of pink. He imagined how it would look if Even smiled - genuinely, not just bitterly. He imagined the wind blowing through the boy's hair, and the grassy flowers of a meadow surrounding his long limbs. He imagined contact lenses instead of glasses. He imagined happiness with the boy called Even.

It wasn't so bad, really.

But then Lumaira opened his eyes again and saw misery with the boy called Even, and remembered that Even was dead just a handful of hours ago and with it the horror of utter impossibility. But it was fading now, his mind simply leaving the mystery unsolved and plodding slowly on, a little dazed and numb, but trying to make the best of a bad job. That was what Even was trying to do, wasn't it? Make the best of a bad job. Except he'd given up.

Except that even _that_ hadn't worked.

Lumaira bit his lip, compelled to wake Even just to tell him that Lumaira would be his friend if he wanted, no matter what anybody else would care to say, because at the end of the day there was only one thing that Even really needed and that was a friend.

But Even needed to rest, so Lumaira simply leaned over and squeezed his shoulders a little then let him be.

* * *

Half an hour later, his phone rang. L'Erena, his best friend. They went back years.

"Hey, Lulu. Why didn't you call?"

Lumaira glanced at Even, who'd shifted in his sleep and was now curled around a bump in the duvet. It was sort of sweet.

"I... I'm busy. Sorry."

"Thought you said your mum was gonna be out this morning. I was gonna come around, remember?"

"Yeah, well, there's been complications," Lumaira said uncomfortably. People rising from the dead sort of complications.

"You don't sound so good."

"I'm not."

"How'd the funeral go?"

Lumaira winced, remembering last night, the guilt and the pain and the fear.

"Not so good."

"Who was there?"

"Um... Even's parents, two of the teachers, a few people I didn't know, and me. And Even,"  
"'Cept Even's dead."

Lumaira glanced at the boy, hypnotised for a moment by his slow, rhythmic breathing as he slept.

"Lulu?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, of course."

"So why was it awful?"

Lumaira rolled his eyes a little like the movement would somehow disguise the stab of pain in his chest. For all the stupid things L'Erena frequently said, that had to have been one of the worst.

"Rennie, it was a _funeral_." And nobody was there and every word the priest said was bullshit and nobody cared and then Even had climbed out of his own grave and nearly died all over again in Lumaira's bathtub last night.

"It was _Even's_ funeral," L'Erena corrected.

"That just made it worse."

"Why?"

L'Erena didn't understand. L'Erena, his goddamn best friend and only true friend, just didn't understand. Lumaira wanted to tell her that Even was alive, Even was here, sleeping softly still, but his thought tightened uncomfortably and he couldn't.

"We killed him, Rennie."

L'Erena sighed audibly.

"Lulu. We've had this conversation before. He killed himself. Sure, it must have sucked pretty damn bad to see him like that but he killed himself. He brought it on himself. It didn't even have anything to do with you, so just forget about Even. He's six feet under now. There's nothing you can do."

Lumaira glanced at Even again. No, he thought. There was a lot he could do for Even.

"So can't you come around?"

"I have chores."

"I'll help you."

Lumaira knew that it would be too suspicious if he kept making excuses - after all, L'Erena knew him like the back of her hand, and would easily find out what was wrong. He could move Even into his mother's room, he supposed. L'Erena wouldn't go in there, would she?

"... Okay."

"I'll be around in ten. Love you!"


	3. Chapter 3

It took two hours for L'Erena to find out. They'd been hanging out the washing, Even tucked safely up in Lumaira's mother's room, and Lumaira was convinced that things were going to be okay when he sent L'Erena inside to fetch more pegs and didn't return.

Curious, and in need of pegs, Lumaira followed her to find her in the hallway, shaking a little and as white as a sheet.

"Fucking _hell_," She managed to spit after a few horrible moments of staring. "Fucking hell, Lumaira, what the _fuck_ is Even's dead body doing on your stairs?"

Lumaira swallowed thickly and glanced between Even, who had presumably passed out at the top of the stairs and fallen down, and L'Erena who was wide-eyed and slack-jawed in utter horror.

"And _why is he wearing your pyjamas_?!"

L'Erena's shriek snapped him out of his horrified reverie and he quickly shuffled her out of Even's sight.

"I- I can explain."

"That's even _more worrying_!"

Lumaira felt tears press at his eyes.

"Please, stop screaming!"

"_Why_ do you have Even's _body_?!"

"Stop _screaming_!"

They stood, eyeing each other up in silence, for a few minutes.

"Right." Lumaira said after a moment, running his hand though his hair.

"Yes?"

L'Erena's voice was strangled.

"Right. I'll be right back."

"L-Lumaira?"

"Yeah?"

"You... you're not a necrophiliac, are you?"

"What? No!"

L'Erena seemed to relax a little, although admittedly that wasn't much.

"Okay. Good. Just thought I'd check."

Lumaira tiptoed back over to the stairwell and gently shook Even awake. He was looking worse again, a crumpled heap of bones and pale, blotchy skin.

"Even," Lumaira said as quietly as he could, hoping that L'Erena wouldn't hear. "Even, you need to get back upstairs right now."

"I took a wrong step," Even replied carefully, inspecting his body for any new injuries. "I can hardly see a thing."

Lumaira shushed him and helped him to his feet.

"You need to get back to bed."

Even seemed to sense Lumaira's concern, frowning and trying to glance around the corner in case anybody was there. Lumaira was quick to tug him back.

"What happened?"

"L'Erena saw you."

"What?"

"She thinks you're dead. Come on!"

"Why would you have my dead body?" Even replied with a frown, mind lost to some place else as step by painfully slow step, Lumaira helped him up to the landing.

"That's what I'm trying to work out so I can explain to her."

They reached the top of the stairs and in through the doorway to tuck Even back up in bed.

"I'll get you a drink."

"How are you going to explain that?"

Lumaira shrugged as he worked with rearranging Even's limbs into some sort of comfortable-looking arrangement.

"How about you tell me the truth."

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Lumaira slowly turned to see L'Erena in the doorway. She was scowling as she stomped in to plonk herself on the bed where Even lay.

"Well? When were you planning to tell me that this whole thing was a joke?"

"It's not a-"

"Seriously, I know you and your guy friends can be stupid, but _seriously_? Making out that Even committed suicide? What kind of stupid prank is that supposed to be? Even faking a bloody _funeral_, you could have told me..."

Even had rolled over and hidden himself under the duvet, and it didn't take a genius to realise that he was crying. Lumaira closed his eyes for a moment, trying to work to how to deal with a suicidal boy and a snarky best friend without any of the three of them dying.

The best thing, he figured, was talk to L'Erena in private. So he stood, grabbed her arm, and tugged her out of the door, closing it with a neat click behind him.

"L'Erena." He said.

"You're sick, you know that? Sure, Even's a cock, but-"

"_L'Erena_."

"What?"

Lumaira took a deep breath, and looked right into L'Erena's eyes.

"Listen to me. Listen to me very carefully, because what I'm about to tell you is true. It sounds completely unbelievable, but I swear that it's true."

L'Erena sought dishonesty in Lumaira's eyes and found none.

"Even was dead," Lumaira began to explain. "Even was dead; I know he was because I saw him. I checked for a pulse, and there wasn't one. Believe me. I ran through every sign of life they teach you in health class and there was no way he could be alive. Even the paramedics agreed, and they'd know if he was. But... last night, after the funeral, I stayed by the grave. They didn't fill it in because it was raining. And Even broke out of the coffin. I _know_ it sounds stupid, and I wouldn't believe you if you were telling me, but it's true. Even came back to life."

It was obvious that L'Erena didn't. She tutted a little, hand on a hip, and rolled her eyes.

"That has to be _the_ worst lie you have _ever_ come up with."

"I'm not lying!" Lumaira screamed. "For God's sake, L'Erena, for once I'm actually telling the truth. He rose from the dead. I don't know _how_, but he _did_."

"How about with the power of _bull shit_?" L'Erena muttered sarcastically.

Lumaira burst into tears.

"It doesn't even matter," He managed through his sobs. "It doesn't matter, the point is he's alive and- and he needs us. There's nothing in between him and suicide, _again_."

L'Erena sighed, a little awkwardly reaching out to pull her taller friend into a hug because if Lumaira was crying that meant he was upset, whether he'd gone completely out of his mind or not.

"If there's nothing left for him then why don't you let him do it?"

This time Lumaira actually howled, clinging to L'Erena as if with a vengeance against her ribcage.

"It's not _fair_!" He insisted. "He shouldn't have to die. We shouldn't have made his life so _shit_ that he thought it would be better to have no life at all,"

L'Erena didn't reply, breathing slowly in and out and in and out, Lumaira's chin resting on her head and his arms wrapped securely around her chest.

"Think about it," Lumaira eventually said. "Imagine what it must have been like for him. He's never had a friend before. I couldn't live without my friends, and he hasn't got _any_. And his parents never gave a shit about him either."

"So what can you do?"

Lumaira considered this at great length, then pulled away from L'Erena, mind made up.  
"I'm going to be his friend." He said with renewed vigour. "I'm going to be his friend whether either of us like it or not. I'm going to help him, and I'm going to tell mum-"

"_What_ are you going to tell her? That you found a zombie and thought it would be a jolly good show to bring him home?"

Lumaira distractedly waved his hand.

"I'll say he's miserable and ran away from home. And's a different Even."

"Who happens to look and act exactly like the supposedly dead Even?" L'Erena asked incredulously.

"My mum won't exactly jump to the conclusion that Even came back to life, will she?" Lumaira replied. "I could call him something else."

"You'll slip," L'Erena said. "Just face it, Lu, it's not going to work. The best thing we can do for Even is either post him home and let his parents deal with the mess, or kill him and dump him back in his grave where he ought to be."

"That's _murder_!" Lumaira howled, sobs racking his body once again. "You'd _kill_ him? How could you _say_ that?!"

"He murdered himself," L'Erena pointed out quietly.

"That's because he was _miserable_!" Lumaira yelled.

Then he stopped.

"Wait. You believe me?"

They both looked at each other in silence and considered this.

"Yeah, well, we're all fucked anyway. We've either got Jesus Number Two in there, or the start of a zombie invasion. Might as well play along with the joke." L'Erena eventually admitted. Lumaira felt himself smile a little through his muggy-reddened face, quickly wiping tears away before daring to lay a hand on the doorknob to return to Even.

"Right. So you have to be nice to him, you got that? It's absolutely imperative."

L'Erena scoffed.

"Do you even know what imperative means?"

"I'm being serious, L'Erena," Lumaira huffed. "You can't do anything mean. He's really, really unhappy at the moment."

L'Erena, for once, sensed the seriousness of the situation and nodded a little, allowing Lumaira to lead her into his mother's room.

"Hey. Even?"

Even was still huddled up in the thick duvet, and Lumaira scooted around to the opposite side of the bed to gently lift up the covers and look underneath. Two round, bright green eyes peered woefully up at him and the thin mouth that accompanied the eyes said nothing.

"L'Erena's here," Lumaira said as if Even didn't know; but his brain was struggling to cope and he wanted to pretend as hard as he could that things were normal. "Why don't you get up and we can go watch a movie downstairs?"

Even huffed a little, looked away, and still said nothing.

"We'll order in a pizza," Lumaira offered hopefully. Even looked back. "And popcorn."

"L'Erena won't laugh at me?"

"Of course not," Lumaira instantly promised. "Well. If she does, I'll kick her. How does that sound?"

To his immense surprise, Even actually spat out a sound that, with a forgiving imagination, could have been a chuckle.

"Okay."

Lumaira grinned.

"D'you need help?"

"Tell me where the stairs start this time and I'll be fine."

"Okay. Rennie, you go round up all the bedding."

"What do you want bedding for?" Even asked incredulously as he climbed, unsteadily, out of the bed.

"To make a den," L'Erena replied. "Since Lulu's sofa is falling apart and all."

"Why don't you just stay in bed?"

"Because the big telly's downstairs."

"Oh. Okay. Fine."

The two of them plus Even got there in the end; duvets and blankets and pillowcases were piled up to made a huge fort on the floor, popcorn was popped, pizza was delivered, and in amongst all the chaos and laughter sat Even, looking a little out of place and more than a little confused, and faintly miserable about the whole affair.

As L'Erena slid the DVD in and pressed play on the remote, Lumaira felt compelled to wrap a friendly arm around Even and tug a blanket over them both.

"Cheer up," He murmured. "It's not so bad. You have us now."

Even looked up at him and Lumaira offered him a comforting smile. Then, slowly, Even's face wrinkled with pent-up emotion and he began to sob. Lumaira held him close until the credits rolled.

* * *

Lumaira's mother returned just over half an hour after L'Erena had gone home (with strict instructions to keep Even's existence as an absolute secret) to find Lumaira and Even talking quietly on the sofa.

"Hullo, Lulu. Who's your friend?"

"Hullo, Mum. This is Even."

"Hullo, Even. How are you?"

"Hullo, Ms Arkenstone. I'm okay."

Formalities over, Lumaira hesitantly stepped forwards.

"Mum, Even needs to stay here for a while."

"Does he now."

"He ran away from home."

"Did he, indeed."

"He's very miserable."

Ms Arkenstone looked over at the boy who was trying to look a little less awkward around the place.

"He looks like he could do with a trip to the doctor."

"He's _very_ miserable," Lumaira assured his mother earnestly. Ms Arkenstone looked again at Even.

"I think we need to call your parents, young man."

Even vehemently shook his head.

"Oh, no. They won't be missing me much."

"He's got some cuts," Lumaira quickly interrupted before his mother could say anything about that. "I want you to have a look at them. So they don't get infected or anything. Please."

They were led up to the bathroom, Even a little reluctantly.

"Okay. Let's have a look."

Lumaira glared meaningfully at Even and when he didn't immediately pull away his sleeves, did it for him, peeling away the makeshift bandages around Even's arms.

"Oh my-"

Lumaira's mother looked away for a moment before turning back to the gaudy red slashes running like tracks along Even's skin. She closed her eyes briefly, and took a deep breath.

"I see." She said eventually. "You're lucky that you got these bandaged in time. Cuts this deep could have killed you."

Lumaira and Even glanced at each other, and said nothing. Ms Arkenstone sat Even down on the edge of the bath, tied up her shoulder-length blonde hair, and began, quietly, to work. Being a nurse, Lumaira supposed that she saw a lot of things like this, but he didn't miss the pain that flickered behind her eyes. He wanted to cry too.

Once she was finished, Lumaira's mother gestured for Lumaira to follow her outside.

"I think we need to have a little talk."

"Kay."

His mother let her hair down again so it flopped like it always did over one shoulder, and leaned with a sigh against the railing of the stairs.

"You haven't mentioned another Even." She said after a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose. Lumaira stiffened a little.

"What does that mean?"

"You know what I'm talking about," She replied evenly. "You were very upset about it. It just seems like a strange coincidence."

"He needs my help," Lumaira insisted helplessly.

"Yes," His mother said. "Yes, I can see that. I just... want to know if there's something you aren't telling me."

"Don't you believe me?" Lumaira, who didn't like how his mother was being so mysterious about everything that he couldn't tell what she really thought, whispered, not trusting his voice to be louder without breaking.

"Of course I do," His mother replied. "I'm not saying that I don't believe you. I just want to know if there's anything I'm... not aware of."

"It's a different Even," Lumaira lied desperately. He hated being dishonest with his mother, who meant the world to him, but it would be even worse if she came to some other conclusion and wouldn't let Even stay.

There was a long silence until his mother slowly spoke.

"Lumaira, what makes you think I would assume that they weren't?"

Lumaira realised a lot of things very quickly, but mainly that he really ought to have come up with a convincing story to tell his mother before she was standing face to her in the hallway.  
"I just thought I'd check," He replied lamely instead. His mother nodded a little, and then began to walk downstairs.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to call the social services."

Lumaira started.

"You can't do that-!"

His mother turned, sadness in her blue eyes, so similar to her son's.

"That boy needs a lot of help," She said softly. "I know you want to help him out all by yourself, but this is something that needs to be dealt with by the authorities."

_You don't understand!_ Lumaira thought helplessly while his oh-so-brilliant mind supplied his mouth with a horrified "You can't!"

"Lumaira."

"You can't!" Lumaira insisted again. "You can't, they were involved before, it didn't work, mum, _please_. Just let him stay here for a few days. I'll find him someplace else. He has a really abusive family, and-"

"Then we ought to be calling the police,"

"He's really scared of the authorities and stuff like that," Lumaira lied desperately. The untruths just kept pouring out of his mouth now, and he battled to remember them all to avoid contradicting himself later. "He just needs a place to stay. Just for a few days. He can sleep on the sofa. I'll take care of him and everything. Please."

His mother shook her head a little, returning to the landing to wrap one arm around Lumaira's shoulders. She'd never been very tall; Lumaira had already surpassed her in height and he was still growing. She was a small sort of person who wore pale, plain clothes with a pale, plain hairstyle... she was so timid, Lumaira often thought. Timid and kind. And people took advantage of that too much.

But anyway.

"Lumaira," She said gently. "I know you care about this Even a great deal, and I respect that. But I don't think it's something you or I can handle alone."

Lumaira shook his head helplessly.

"Mum... you can't. Please, just trust me on this. It'll just make everything awful. At least wait until tomorrow."

She looked into his eyes, his desperate, pleading eyes. Then, as mothers are wont to do, she changed the subject.

"Have you two eaten dinner?"

"Yeah. L'Erena came round. We had pizza in front of the telly."

"Okay. I'm going to go to bed, and then I've got work, so..."

"So?"

Lumaira's mother pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing softly.

"Just for the love of all things good and kind, don't do anything stupid. And don't let Even do anything stupid, either."

Lumaira nodded earnestly.

"I promise, mum."


	4. Chapter 4

In the morning, Even was worse again. He simply didn't even look alive, and bar the soft rise and fall of his chest as he slept - back in Lumaira's bed - he could honestly have been dead.

Lumaira was worried. He'd tried to get Even to eat, just a little, and mostly succeeded - but he'd thrown up just hours later, pale and shaky as Lumaira leaned him over the sink in the bathroom. He wasn't sleeping well, either. He looked like he was in a lot of pain.

No. Lumaira was _terrified_. He was terrified that Even was going to die. Again.

So the only thing left was to watch over the thin, bony body with one hand on its chest, listening to the steady thump, thump, thump of each fluttering heartbeat. It was the only proof that convinced Lumaira that Even was still alive. He couldn't be undead if his heart was beating, right?

Catching himself again, Lumaira shook his head. No. Zombies didn't exist; they were just myths set out to scare little children. They were the stuff of bad horror movies, not real life. But, then again, Even _had_ risen from the dead.

The early hours of the morning were the worst by far. Watching over Even, Lumaira was too busy to sleep, but not busy enough to keep his mind occupied in order to shy away from the truth.

The truth was, he thought now as he watched Even's chest rise and fall, rise and fall, that Even had been dead. Absolutely. Medically confirmed. Lumaira knew that for a fact; he'd seen the corpse. He'd called nine-nine-nine, sobbed into the mouthpiece of his phone as the poor operator tried to piece together what had happened, been in the ambulance that set off rushing towards the hospital, only to have Even confirmed dead halfway there. Lumaira remembered screaming. It seemed surreal. Even, the kid that was always sitting at the back of the class with all the answers absolutely correct, was dead. _Dead_.

But the other thing that Lumaira knew for a fact was that Even was not dead any more. He knew that now, listening hard against the twittering twilight birdsong for every shallow breath that Even pulled from the air and moments later slowly released. Old science lessons came back to him; the seven processes of life flashed across his mind. Movement. Well, Even was certainly doing that, however minutely. Respiration - he was doing that too. Then Lumaira couldn't remember the rest so he curled up miserably on the chair next to the bed and waited for dawn to break.

How long had it been? Unusually long. Almost a month. His parents had been on a two week business trip to some foreign country at the time - Lumaira found himself surprised that they hadn't returned the moment they'd found out that their son was dead. He would have done. But then, remembering Even's utter disillusionment when it came to his mother and father, he supposed that maybe the boy was right, after all. That, he realised, was awful. He imagined Even's body in the cold morgue - Lumaira had visited it, once, to cry openly on L'Erena's shoulder - for so long, as though it was waiting for its parents to come and give it closure in the form of burial.

Lumaira felt lost. This, whatever had happened with Even both before and after his death, was too big for him to handle. How could he, just another classmate who really knew nothing about the enigmatic boy, convince Even that his life was worth living? His mind couldn't even accept that Even _was_ alive. It kept trying to convince him that he was dreaming, that the suicide was a hoax - any scientific explanation to detract from the sheer impossibility of a boy rising from his own grave. But the paramedics couldn't have been wrong, surely, and anyway after a month in a plastic bag, Even would be dead anyway. What if he'd been in some sort of coma? They'd know, wouldn't they?

Lumaira found no answers. So, he quietly supposed as five o'clock in the morning arrived, he'd just have to squirrel those thoughts into the back of his mind and take every day with Even as it came. Hopefully the boy would survive long enough for things to be settled.

No, not hopefully.

Lumaira would _not_ let Even die.

* * *

Lumaira's mother returned home at eight, when Lumaira would have normally left for school - but he didn't want to leave Even alone. Not since his condition was so rapidly deteriorating.

"He looks worse," He said to his mother as she yawned discretely and made herself herbal tea from the kettle. "I think he needs your help..."

She looked too harassed to be pestered, Lumaira noted miserably, but Even was important. He couldn't keep coming second place any more, and he needed urgent attention.

"If he's that bad, I think we should take him to the hospital," His mother said as she plucked her name badge - _Naminé Arkenstone_ - from her uniform and laid it on the counter.

Lumaira frowned a little. They'd want to know who he was. What if it was a conspiracy, and they'd pretend he was dead again?

"I don't know if he can..."

"Why not?"

Lumaira racked his mind for a legitimate reason.

"Papers, I think. Won't he need papers?"

"He'll be listed in the hospital records," His mother assured him, setting out the ingredients for two cups of hot chocolate too. Lumaira's eyebrows knitted together. _Not if he's supposed to be dead._

He fell silent after that, and she worked without words too, until three steaming mugs were sitting on the worktop, two on a tray with a little plate of biscuits for Lumaira to take upstairs.

"Thanks, mum."

She smiled.

"It's fine."

"How was work?"

"We had quite a few drunks this time. One man who'd tripped down the stairs and broken his leg. The usual."

"No dead people?" Lumaira asked before he caught himself. But his mother just laughed a little, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

"Not this time, no."

_Oh_, Lumaira thought. _She thinks I mean people who are actually dead._

"Could you have another look at Even anyway?"

"Okay."

"Thanks."

Lumaira carried the tray, careful not to spill anything, up the stairs and into his room. Even was lying against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. Lumaira's first reaction was still _Oh God, he's dead_ until Even twisted his head a little in his direction and forced a fleeting smile onto his face.

"Mum made you hot chocolate. And there's biscuits, too."

Even peered at the tray that Lumaira laid on his lap.

"Thank you."

Lumaira's mother had set her tea down somewhere and was pulling out a bag, laying it on the bed.

"You've lost a lot of blood," She stated, pulling out a stethoscope. Lumaira closed his eyes and tried not to remember just how much of Even's blood he saw plastered to the boy's hands, arms, face, hair and clothes, seeping into the bed sheets and pooling like a cheap special effect on the floor.

"Heartbeat is weak."

Lumaira unwillingly recalled the witching hours, feeling that thump so dimly wax and wane as though Even's very life force was trying to slip away.

"Malnutrition."

Too thin, too thin. Bones all too visible through pale skin. _Fatty_.

"He needs medical attention," Lumaira's mother concluded as she put away her instruments. "A few days in hospital at the very least, if not a week."

"Hah!" Even scoffed, turning away. "Like they'd treat anybody who's _dead_."

Lumaira and his mother froze, the older frowning a little and silently mouthing a questioning "Dead?" with her lips.

"Almost dead," Lumaira quickly amended, throwing Even a meaningful glare.

"If by "almost dead" you mean lowered six feet underground in a coffin, then yes. Almost dead." Even, who didn't seem to be getting the hint, hissed. Lumaira laughed nervously, glancing at his mother.

"Very funny,"

There was a pause before Even, not-quite-focus swapping between the two other people in the room, spoke quietly.

"You didn't tell her, did you."

Lumaira resisted the urge to scream.

"Do you think that I would tell her?" He exclaimed, gesturing wildly. Even winced, and practically receded right into the pillows as though he could disappear. Then there was silence.  
"I see," Lumaira's mother eventually said. "I thought it was the same Even. Would either of you care to explain?"

"No," Even immediately huffed. Lumaira was more forgiving, gently leading his mother outside.  
"I know this sounds insane," He began, catching his mother's eye contact and not letting it go, "But... Even's not dead any more."

"Any more," His mother echoed quietly.

Lumaira considered his options. Even had been dead and was now alive. Even had been dead and was still, actually, dead. Even had not been dead and was now alive. _Even was alive_.

"The point is that he's alive and he needs our help," He quickly established. "It doesn't matter how or why, because you'd never believe the truth anyway. But he's alive. And he's ill."  
Lumaira's mother seemed to sense the boy's emotional discomfort and pulled him into a gentle, maternal hug.

"We'll take him to the hospital," She resolved softly. "We'll see what happens from there. But he needs the treatment there."

"Now?" Lumaira asked.

"Now."

* * *

Naminé Arkenstone was approaching the situation much like her son. This was by simply trying not to think about the logistics of Even's state of un-death, and getting on with dealing with the consequences appropriately. This was not an uncommon situation for her - in many of the cases in A&E she looked at she dared not think about the cause of the injury. She was just there to help clean up the mess. And Even was the same; however he'd managed it, either through hoax, curious medical condition or miracle, he was just about alive and in need of a great deal of help. Lumaira, the poor thing, was doing his best, she thought as he helped the taller boy stumble to the car. There was early morning frost on the ground and Even was shivering violently, wrapped up in one of Lumaira's jackets that weren't quite the right dimensions for him and moving slowly and without grace. Lumaira was there with an arm around his waist, murmuring words of encouragement - many of which were rebuked almost instantly, but persevering nonetheless. It was crushing, seeing Even stumbling so helplessly - but this state was nothing that Naminé didn't frequently see at work, so she steeled herself, made sure that everyone's seatbelts were strapped on, and rolled out of the drive. It took fifteen minutes to reach the hospital.

Then things got tricky.

No papers? Even Carlisle. No, that isn't right. Even Carlisle is registered deceased on this database. I'm sorry, if you can't prove that it's him then we can't treat him on the NHS. Yes, I can see that his condition is very serious... yes, but he's-

- right. I see. Ah. Okay. Well, if you would be so kind as to wait here, a doctor will treat him in a few minutes.

Lumaira was looking at his mother with renewed awe as she rolled her sleeves back down and led the two boys to empty seats in the waiting room. She smiled tightly at them both.

"If anybody wants to deny a valid patient treatment, they'll have to answer to me."

Lumaira might have been impressed, but Even was looking as glumly miserable as ever as he glanced around the hospital.

"They'll ask questions," He whispered, head hanging.

"I'll sort something out," Naminé promised. This still didn't seem to satisfy Even; if anything, his frown just grew deeper.

"It doesn't matter anyway."

"Even," Naminé said in the soothing voice she often used for stricken patients, gently brushing her hand against Even's shoulder, "You matter just as much as any person in this building. The world, even. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're any less important than anybody else."

"It's my own bloody fault anyway," Even hissed, glaring vehemently at the floor. But Naminé knew from the experience of working in a hospital and raising her own son for more than a decade and a half that Even was arguing more on principle than die-hard belief in his view.

"No," She said, letting her hand slip back to her side. "I don't think it is."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Lumaira was forced to wait in anxious silence while a doctor performed a standard check-up on Even. He tried flicking through a magazine lying on the waiting room table but he couldn't concentrate enough to do any more than gloss over the headlines. He was scared. Terrified.

What if they announced that Even was dead again? What if he was dying, _again_? what if they refused to treat him, no matter how many thickly-veiled threats Lumaira's mother hissed across secretaries' tables? What if, what if, what if?

It seemed like hours before Naminé returned, carefully shaking Lumaira from a restless doze. Her complexion seemed optimistically light.

"He'll be fine," She whispered. Lumaira started from his chair and she chuckled a little, gently pushing him back down. "He needs to stay in the hospital for a week or two, that's all."  
"Can I talk to him?" Lumaira instantly asked. Naminé nodded.

"He's resting now, but yes. For a few minutes."

She led him down the corridor and into the dusty silence of a ward. The only sound was the reassuring bip, bip, bip of Even's heartbeat monitor and slow, steady breaths from the boy himself. It was odd, Lumaira thought as Naminé slipped away to converse with another doctor; Even sort of suited the cool, sterile environment of the hospital. His arms had been re-bandaged, a drip attached to his hand. To Lumaira, he for once looked alive and like he was going to stay that way. So he smiled a little as he perched on the edge of the bed.

"Hey."

Even twisted his head a little to face Lumaira without emotion.

"Hi."

"Things'll be okay now," Lumaira promised gently. "Okay?"

Even squinted a little to see Lumaira better, and the fingers of one hand twitched a little as though to reach up and brush against the other boy just to check that he was real.

"Perhaps," He agreed doubtfully, and let his baleful green eyes slide closed. Lumaira felt compelled to rest his hand on Even's as though that would help to reassure him. Even let out a little breath that could have been the makings of a smile with a little imagination, and shifted a little before lying still. Lumaira watched over him for a few minutes, then let his mother take him home. He felt like collapsing into his bed and sleeping solidly for the next eighteen hours, but Naminé took him to the kitchen and sat him down with a determined look.

"Lumaira," She said. "I think it's time I knew the full situation with Even, don't you?"


	5. Chapter 5

"I told her everything."

It was tomorrow now, and after school Lumaira had raced home to change and then get the bus to the hospital so he could visit Even. Naminé had already got up a little earlier, and was presumably at the hospital. Lumaira had pegged in his mind to fix that, too. She always tried too hard. She'd end up burning herself out if she didn't get enough sleep.

It took several minutes to convince the receptionist to let him through-

"I'm sorry, Even Carlisle is registered deceased on this database-"

"I'm telling you, he's upstairs! Ask Naminé Arkenstone!"

"And how do you know her?"

"She's my _mum_!"

"Ah. Okay. Well, off you go, then."

- then he practically scrambled up the stairs, found Even's room, and tiptoed in.

"Hey, Even?"

Even was alone in the smart, sterile room, seemingly engrossed in a thick book that had been laid out on his lap. He was wearing glasses again, Lumaira noticed, and vaguely the pink haired boy wondered where he'd got them from. But as soon as he spoke, Even hastily pulled them off, squinting again.

"Oh, it's you."

Lumaira tried to brush off Even's less-than-enthusiastic greeting, and came over to sit on the chair next to his bed anyway.

"Are you feeling any better?"

"A little," Even admitted, fingers trailing idly across the lines of his book. Lumaira nodded, satisfied.

"Good."

The two of them sat in silence for a while.

"They gave you glasses, did they?" Lumaira eventually piped up. Even nodded curtly and said nothing. It was only after five, maybe even ten minutes, that he spoke.

"You didn't have to come visit, you know."

Lumaira, who'd been inspecting the opposite wall, glanced over. Even's head was hanging, and he was fiddling a little with the corner of one white page.

"Of course I did," He promptly replied, and then in a daring gesture, added, "That's what friends are for, right?"

There was the briefest of hesitations and Even's head snapped up.

"But I'm not your friend."

Lumaira took the other boy's hand.

"But I'll be yours, if you like."

"But I'm _awful_," Even protested, but Lumaira didn't miss the weakness in his voice, or the hope. He supposed that in Even's situation, he'd be scared of laying his trust in somebody else's hands in case his supposedly horrible personality drove that person away. But Lumaira didn't believe that Even was as terrible as he made out. So he was rather blunt and tactless, but it was nothing compared to the two-faced slyness that a lot of Lumaira's friends seemed to possess.

"I bet you you're not," He replied, biting at his lip a little. "You're just not sociable, that doesn't make you a horrible person at all."

"But wouldn't you want to be with one of your other friends?" Even asked quietly. Well, maybe, but Lumaira would feel terribly guilty if he left Even alone to have fun with his friends. So he dutifully shook his head.

"I'd rather you be okay," He insisted. "You need me more than them."

Even took a deep, shaky breath, and nodded a little, glancing surreptitiously at Lumaira. Then he picked up his borrowed glasses and fumbled them onto his face, looking at Lumaira again.

"Oh." He said. Lumaira, who'd been picking words from the book on Even's lap - the ones that weren't so many syllables long he couldn't even read, at any rate - glanced up.

"Hm?"

"So that's what you look like."

Lumaira giggled a little despite himself, but quickly stopped when Even's face fell and his eyebrows crumpled with worry.

"Sorry," He said. "It was just... you sounded so surprised, like you'd been expecting something else."

Even huffed a little and looked distinctly offended, pulling the glasses off again.

"I just thought that you only looked like a girl because I couldn't see you very well. But you actually _do_."

Lumaira tried not to laugh and failed, spluttering into his hands.

"Oh, God," He managed to utter, finding himself unable to keep a straight face even for a second. Rennie told him that he was girly with startling frequency, of course, and he was used to it by now - because, at the end of the day, he _was_ undeniably effeminate - but hearing it like that from the straight-faced Even was just short of hysterical.

The blonde boy was looking absolutely mortified and Lumaira quickly sobered up to console him.

"I'm not laughing at you," He quickly explained. "I'm laughing at _me_. Because if I'm girly enough to look like a girl even when you put your glasses _on_..."

He soon realised that Even didn't understand, and shut up.

"Sorry. I just find everything funny."

Even turned away a little.

"Do you find me funny?"

"Not like that!" Lumaira quickly established. "I mean, I don't find you as a person funny at all. It's just some of the things you do and say."

"But that _is_ me," Even protested. Lumaira sighed, rubbing his forehead. How could he explain to Even that being funny was a good thing?

"It's not like a horrible kind of funny. It's like... like me and Rennie. We tease each other all the time, but that's okay because we know we love each other really. It's sort of an affectionate kind of poking fun at each other. Like she always calls me a girl but that's okay, because, well, I practically _am_. And it's funny."

Even considered this.

"But doesn't it hurt when people laugh at you?"

"Not at all," Lumaira said, shrugging. "I like being able to make people laugh. It's like telling jokes."

"But I wasn't telling a joke. I was telling the truth."

"That's even funnier, then," Lumaira explained. "Because it's really silly and it's true so that's silly, too."

"But that's mean on you."

"I don't mind."

Even frowned and that, Lumaira realised, was where he didn't understand.

"I won't laugh," He promised. "If you say anything." How he was going to achieve this, he wasn't sure. He laughed at _everything_. But if it made Even feel a bit better, he was willing to try. Even, however, didn't seem content with this resolution.

"But then I'll think that you would have laughed at _everything_."

Lumaira looked at Even with sad eyes.

"Well, if I was going to, it's never a mean laugh. I wouldn't ever laugh to try to hurt you." _Not any more_.

And a few minutes later, the nurse came in, and it was time for Lumaira to go home, so he scoured the hospital in search of Naminé, found her in the end, and made very certain to tell her not to overwork herself, and caught the last bus home.

* * *

The next thing to do was call Rennie. She frequently bunked school to help her father out at the garage he owned - of course, the school knew but after so many years, they'd worked out the L'Erena was going to come into school when she felt like it whether they wanted or not, and there was little they could do about it. She got the work done. Lumaira sometimes wished he could join her but the truth was that he wasn't exactly the smartest of people and he couldn't afford to skip lessons. More to the point, his mother Naminé would be horrified when the letters would start coming home.

Today was one of those days when L'Erena wasn't at school - which was a mixed blessing. At least there was no way she'd have accidentally let slip to anybody at school if she'd not been there, but that also meant that Lumaira didn't know who she might have told of her own free will. So the first thing he did when he got home was pick up the phone.

"Rennie?"

"Hey, Lulu. 'Sup?"

Lumaira shuffled around his kitchen making supper as he talked. "Just checking you were okay, that's all."

"I'm fine."

"And, um, you haven't told anybody about Even, have you?"

From the other end of the crackling like, L'Erena laughed.

"Not a soul. Would I tell anyone? They'd never believe me."

"I guess so," Lumaira reluctantly agreed. Given Rennie's notorious status as a gossip, he wasn't sure - but she'd said so, so he had to trust her. That was what friends were for.

"So how is the old emotional train-wreck?"

"Don't be mean!" Lumaira instantly protested. "Mum and I took him to hospital last night, he was so ill. Mum managed to get a place in for him even though the hospital said he's dead... I don't know how she's going to explain it, though. I don't even know what she thinks. I visited him today, though. He looks better."

L'Erena didn't reply immediately.

"Okay," She eventually said. "Well, if you ever decide to remember who your real friends are, I'm right here."

Lumaira, who'd been carefully balancing a frying-pan-full of food on the way to his plate, dropped it suddenly.

"_L'Erena_!" He screamed, partly out of horror and mostly because the frying pan had fallen on his foot and it hurt like hell.

"What?"

"How can you be so _heartless_?"

He knelt down to pick eggs and bacon up off the floor as L'Erena sighed.

"Look, Lulu, it's not like that. Just... listen to me, okay. Even committed suicide for a reason. It was because he was lonely and miserable. And hey, I know that's not nice for anybody but sometimes that's just the way it happens. I know you're just trying to help but there's probably nothing that you can do. You're just going to end up hurting yourself." She paused momentarily as though to reach for some invisible object or sip from an illusionary glass. "I know what you're like. You're just like your mother. You try to help everybody else so much, you forget about yourself. Even... there's no hope for Even any more. I know that it hurts you for anything like this to happen, but you have to move on. If you keep clinging to him, it'll just get worse. For both of you."

Lumaira, halfway through scraping the worst of a smashed and ruined egg yolk back into the pan with a fork, sat down hopelessly on the floor and looked at his destroyed supper. How could he possibly piece this back together into something edible? And how could he possibly fix Even, poor, lost Even with no friends and no family and hardly even a life?

"I have to try," He quietly insisted. "I can't just abandon him now."

"I'm not telling you to abandon him. Just let him go."

"It's the same thing!"

L'Erena sighed again, this time more audibly.

"I'm coming over. I need to talk to you properly."

The phone line went as dead as Lumaira felt. Suddenly in the cold silence, food lost halfway to his plate, he felt scared. Nothing left to do, the truth was sinking in again. Even had come back from the dead.

Even had been _dead_. And now he was _alive_. It broke every fundamental rule of, well, _everything_, and in the empty night nothing else seemed impossible. Zombies. If there was Even there could be zombies. Lumaira tried not to think about all those films - oh, he'd laughed at them _then_, curled up on the sofa with Rennie - but he couldn't help it. The undead, crawling from graves to limp down roads, forming hoards and killing all who stood in their way...

Lumaira let out a little whimper of a scream. Suddenly, he felt terrified. This wasn't even a nightmare; this was reality. All he'd been doing was trying to hide from it. What if Even himself was one, mindless and-?

No. He had a heartbeat. He clearly thought for himself. And he showed no signs of wanting to eat Lumaira's brains. Yet.

No! Not yet! Not ever! It wasn't going to happen! It couldn't happen!

When something knocked on the door, Lumaira nearly shrieked before he realised that it was just L'Erena. Calming himself, he rushed to the door and opened it to find-

"Boo!"

"_Argh_!"

"Oh, God, Lulu, you really are pathetic."

"You'd be on edge too if you'd-!" Lumaira began, but then he decided better of admitting that he'd actually thought that L'Erena was a zombie. "Look, just. Come in before the cold gets in."

"Or the living dead."

"Don't say that! I'm scared!"

L'Erena laughed, pushing through to the kitchen.

"Ew. What happened here?"

"I dropped the frying pan," Lumaira truthfully told her. "When you told me that I ought to leave Even to die."

Rennie sighed, dutifully grabbing a towel and mopping up the slowly solidifying egg yolk.

"Honestly."

Lumaira sank down to the floor as L'Erena dumped the last of the kitchen towels in the bin.

"Rennie?"

"Uh-huh?"

"D'you- do you think that zombies exist?"

L'Erena laughed a little comfortingly, sitting down next to Lumaira.

"Not a chance."

"It's just that I was thinking about Even, and well, if he came back from the dead, then why not other people, and then I was just, uh, wondering. Yeah." Lumaira burbled, feeling a little useless.

"Don't be a scaredy-cat. There's no way they exist."

Lumaira considered this and hoped like hell that Rennie was right. Cowering by the worktop in the kitchen, he felt like he needed a cleaver in his hand, just in case. So he quickly decided to change the subject; however he was less than tactless in his approach.

"So how do you think Even came back?"

L'Erena shrugged.

"Dunno."

"But you must have wondered."

L'Erena gave Lumaira a steady look.

"Personally," She said, "I think that this whole thing is a hoax and Even never really died. It's the only conclusion I can come to. But obviously you disagree-"

"I know he was dead," Lumaira vehemently insisted.

"Yeah. I know. But I don't know how to explain how Even came back if he did. So what am I supposed to so? Suddenly believe in magic? Convert to Christianity?"

Lumaira miserably leaned against L'Erena's shoulder.

"I don't know what to think any more."

* * *

Tomorrow came and with it, more school and more lessons and more life like it always had been. Lumaira kept finding himself twisting in his seat to stare at Even's empty chair at the back of the class, around which everyone giggled and joked just the same. It was like Even had never even existed. Everyone was just carrying on with their lives, no idea that the boy was actually alive, slowly recovering in hospital.

Lumaira was more than a little out of it all day. Nightmares that had forgotten him when he was six were returning, concentration ruined by all the thoughts of Even, here there and everywhere.

He walked to the bus stop with Rennie after school, and was about to say goodbye when-

"I'm coming with you."

Unsure as to whether this was a good thing or not - but insanely hopeful - Lumaira nodded a little as the two of them boarded the bus.

"Okay. Just be nice, won't you? And don't laugh at his glasses. He's got glasses now."

"Sure, yeah, whatever."

They reached the hospital in good time where there was yet more confusion over Even's state of life -

"I'm sorry, Even Carlisle is registered-"

"Deceased on this database, yes, I know, but he's upstairs. I promise you."

- and then a short trip to Even's ward. Dancing around nurses, Lumaira carefully slipped in with L'Erena behind.

"Hey, Even."

They were trying to make him eat, which he didn't seem terribly enthusiastic about. Lumaira was quick to shuffle over and take his hand.

"Come on, you need to eat."

"I'm not hungry," Even insisted, conviction more than a little lacking. Lumaira steadily met his eyes, which was quite an achievement because Even hardly looked at anybody. It was always the floor, or his own bony hands.

"You need to eat."

Even shuffled uncomfortably, looking away.

"I know," He whispered, loud enough only for Lumaira to hear. "It's just... it always reminds me of... you know... everything does."

Lumaira gently eased himself past an irritable-looking nurse to sit beside Even, softly brushing his thumb against the back of the older boy's hand the way his mother used to do when he was too upset even for a cuddle.

"I know it's hard," He promised, "But you have to keep trying."

Even looked down at the tray of food on his lap, then over at L'Erena, lingering in the doorway. She shrugged a little to him, as though to tell him that whether he liked it or not, Lumaira was right. So he sighed a little, and unsteadily reached out to take his knife and fork. Lumaira was quick to locate the temporary glasses and push them onto Even's face.

"You need those."

Even opened his mouth, presumably to reply, and then decided better of it and began to eat again. A few minutes later, the nurses left him to his own devices. L'Erena said she was going to go and find Naminé - although how true that was, Lumaira didn't know - and left, leaving him alone with Even.

"So how are you feeling?"

Even had finished most of the meal by the time he pushed the tray away, and Lumaira supposed that would be enough as he carefully carried it to the side.

"Better."

"Good. I've been worried about you."

"Don't worry about me," Even huffed weakly. Lumaira smiled apologetically.

"I can't help it.""Can't you just forget about me?" Even asked with the kind of tone that tagged a silent _everybody else has_ to the end of his question.

"I couldn't even if I wanted to," Lumaira promised earnestly. Even stared for a few moments, still a little boggle-eyed, then gave up and returned his focus to his hands.

"I wish," He whispered after a few minutes of awkward silence, "I wish I'd met you before... before, you know."

"Yeah," Lumaira said, reaching over to take Even's hand again. "Yeah, me too." And feeling the need for further explanation, he added: "You have no idea how bad I feel for not saying anything. We knew how miserable you were. Anybody could have said something. I guess I'm just lucky that you came back."

Hesitantly, Even did something that Lumaira hadn't been expecting: he tentatively leaned against the healthier boy, his comparatively tiny body weight leaving almost no force against Marluxia.

"D-do you really think that?"

Lumaira pulled him into a loose hug.

"Of course."


	6. Chapter 6

Every day after school, Lumaira visited Even in the hospital. And every day, the dead boy was a little healthier, looked a little stronger, came a little closer to almost smiling. Rennie was still being a little stubbornly sullen, but Lumaira invited her around every night until he was just about ready to pass out in class the next morning. And so on Saturday, finally, Even was ready to go home. There were still a few problems with whether or not Even was Even or whether Even was even alive, but somehow Naminé convinced the managers that there must have been some kind of mistake - this was obviously Even; all of his details matched perfectly - and it looked like they'd just discretely changed the record and sent him on his way.

Naminé assured Lumaira that it was best that way; he was beginning to think that her viewpoint was the same as his - neither of them knew or understood the truth, so the best thing to do right now was to just deal with the consequences without trying too hard to make sense of the cause. So Even was bundled into Lumaira's bed and Lumaira into Naminé's bed, who he shared with his mother whenever their sleeping patterns overlapped. It wasn't like it bothered either of them; as a two person family, they had always been very close. There was something nostalgic, Lumaira thought, about waking up early one morning to feel Naminé crawling into the other side of the bed and rolling over to give her a sleepy hug. They'd always leaned on each other, and when Lumaira was young Naminé had occasionally woken him up just to hold him close and weep into his shoulder, and of course when the nightmares were too scary he'd take this week's favourite teddy bear into his Mummy's room and snuggle up with her and feel safe.  
Not much was really happening. And that worried Lumaira.

* * *

"I have an idea."

Even had been pouring over Lumaira's school books with honest-to-goodness fascination ever since he'd got home, but... not much else. And Lumaira was desperate to see some kind of material improvement in Even's state so he'd come up with a brilliant plan to get him out and about and hopefully, all being well, smiling.

Even looked up from the book he'd been reading and immediately pulled his glasses off. Lumaira smiled a little at his squinting face, and gently put them back on.

"You need those."

"I look awful."

"You look fine," Lumaira promised, subconsciously thumbing Even's cheek a little as though to console him more. His skin was still rough but to his credit he was exactly the same as any other fifteen year old boy.

"You can't think that," Even insisted without conviction. Lumaira wanted to lean over and kiss his cheek, because actually he _did_ think that, but that sort of thing was probably best reserved for close friends and family.

"I wouldn't lie to you," He promised instead, coming over to sit next to Even on the sofa. "But anyway, I've got an idea."

"So you said."

"Well," Lumaira began, "I think that we should go somewhere now that you're feeling better. And since it's Saturday, I thought we could-"

"You'll be happier with L'Erena," Even interrupted. Lumaira sighed.

"No, I won't. Because I'll be sick with worry about you."

To this, Even had no cutting reply, so Lumaira continued.

"So I think we should go out somewhere. If it's okay with you, I could invite Rennie too. But we could go to the aquarium up in town, or the zoo, or something."

"I'd rather go somewhere where there aren't people," Even admitted. Lumaira considered this and thought it was fair enough. Those bandages still around his arms were suspicious anyway, and if Even was uncomfortable around one person then in a crowd he'd be even worse.

"Okay. Well, there's a nature reserve nearby here. We could get the bus and take a picnic or something? How does that sound?"

"I don't know," Even said miserably. "I don't know."

Lumaira pulled him into a hug and stroked the back of his head until his tense muscles relaxed a little.

"How about we just go. And if you don't feel very good about that we can come home again."

Even nodded against Lumaira's shoulder, but didn't immediately move.

"It's really hard," He eventually said. "To keep going."

"You can't give up," Lumaira stubbornly replied, ignoring the sudden flare of fear in his gut.

"It's not like that." Even whispered. "It's like... I just feel stuck. I couldn't... I couldn't kill myself again. I don't even know if it would work. But I don't have the energy to keep going on living either. I just feel so apathetic about everything."

Lumaira, who'd always tended towards over enthusiasm, didn't really understand - but he gave Even his best sympathetic look anyway.

"It's only temporary," He promised. "Come on, let's go out and do something. It'll help."

Even cast him a doubtful glance, but eventually he heaved the heavy textbook from his lap and hauled himself to his feet.

"Would you feel a bit better if Rennie came with us?" Lumaira asked as they made their way into the kitchen, then quickly corrected himself. "I mean, would you at least not feel too much worse?"

"You might as well invite her and save today from being too dull," Even replied sullenly. Lumaira sighed, pulling bread and lunch meats out to make sandwiches. Even just didn't get it, did he. He just hung around in the doorway like he wasn't wanted when he _was_, acted like Lumaira was only doing this because he felt guilty and not because Even truly did deserve better than what he'd got.

Eventually, though, he seemed to simply feel too awkward and gestured to the hallway.

"I'll just go change my bandages."

"Okay."

Lumaira finished the sandwiches and packed them up, then called Rennie, in good time and as soon as he'd pulled his shoes on he scrambled up the stairs to collect Even.

"Hey, Even? You in there?"

The bathroom door was ajar and Lumaira carefully pushed it open, fearing the worst - but there was no blood to speak of. Even was teetering on the edge of the bath, staring at his bared arms. Lumaira had seen the wounds too many times, but the skin here was as smooth as his own. There wasn't a single mark anywhere.

"That makes no sense," Even finally managed. That was the understatement of the century, Lumaira thought as he sat next to the other boy and gently ran his fingers across Even's wrists. Were it possible, this made negative sense. "I thought they were healing well, but..."

Lumaira was tempted to say that this way, Even wouldn't need to worry about scars - but that seemed rather crass, so he just wrapped a companionable arm around the taller boy.

"It must be related to, you know, everything."

"Yeah," Even said quietly. "I know."

"Anyway," Lumaira persisted brightly in a futile attempt to cheer Even up, "This is really good! You, uh, well, it's one less thing to worry about, at any rate."

"If anything, I'm worrying more," Even replied blankly, standing up and apparently oblivious to the knock on effect of Lumaira very nearly toppling into the bath. "Wounds don't just disappear. People don't just come back to life. This is stupid. All of this has to be a dream, there's no way that this could be happening to me."

"I think it's a miracle," Lumaira admitted.

"A miracle? Don't make me laugh!" Even scoffed. "This is horrendous. Haven't you even thought about the implications of this? This ruins every rule of physics there is! I've just proved science _wrong_, and you think that's a good thing? Are you _stupid_? If these cuts healed so quickly, what happens if I get hurt again? What if I die again, only to come back to life? What if I can't actually _die_?"

Lumaira, who'd if anything not expected that outburst, simply sat in stunned and awkward silence. So Even continued.

"And if anybody finds out about this - what then? The hospital's going to be asking questions, anybody who used to know me is going to ask questions. You can't go bluffing and lying forever! What if they take me away to experiment on me, what then? I'm a _freak_, Lumaira, how could you _possibly_ call that a miracle?"

Lumaira realised that tears were pressing at the corners of his eyes, and knowing that it was only a matter of time before the spilled down his cheeks, he stood and grabbed a crushing hold of Even.

"I won't let anybody take you away," He promised fiercely, pressing his face to the crook of the blonde boy's neck. "I don't care what anybody else says, you came back for a reason and I'm not going to give up on you now."

"You're not making any sense either," Even huffed. But he didn't push Lumaira away, at the very least.

"I never make sense."

"No. No, you don't."

In fact, it was eventually Lumaira who broke the embrace, tugging on Even's hand to lead him downstairs.

"Come on, let's just go. We're meeting Rennie at the bus stop and if we're going to get there in time for the five past bus, we'll have to hurry."

Bumbling about with menial, everyday business like recalling bus times consoled Lumaira a little as he passed Even his shoes and wriggled into his backpack. It was pink, a flowery thing that Rennie had bought him years ago and had never quite fallen apart. Lumaira loved it to pieces.

"C'mon."

Even followed him silently out of the house into the shiny front garden. The weather was brilliant, warm and still with the sun spangling gaily in the sky and fluffy, harmless clouds drifting lazily across its path. Lumaira stretched until his back clicked and smiled at Even who seemed to beattempting to stand in the single patch of dampened shade on the paving and looking miserable.

"Cheer up," He said, "It's a wonderful day. And we're going to go and have fun."

"Fun," Even echoed, like he was learning a new word. "Right."

Lumaira bit back a laugh and took his hand all the way to dash for the bus and catch it in time, then find a seat at the back with L'Erena. They reached the park in good time, and thanking the driver Lumaira helped Even off the bus and through the tall gates into rolling fields beyond. Lumaira knew the way past grazing pasture and into long meadows that made Even sneeze, down a valley of limestone paving and up against the sloping bank of a pretty stream. It took them all the way to to midday before they settled down, Lumaira throwing off his backpack and stretching out in the sun with a contented sigh.

"I love this place."

L'Erena was already raiding the backpack for food as Lumaira reached up behind him to pull Even down to sit with him. The boy looked determined to be saturnine all day, and was finding it hard to succeed as Lumaira passed him crisps and sandwich and smiled amiably at him from the ground.

"We should play a game," He said as they made their way through the chocolate bars and apples and bottles of squash. Well, mostly him and Rennie; Even had nibbled at a sandwich and then an apple, and wondered how the other two could eat so much. L'Erena had made a joke about appetites and dead people which was entirely inappropriate, but for once Even seemed to let it slide.

"What, and vomit back up our lunch?" L'Erena scoffed.

"Well, after we've let it go down a bit."

"Sometimes I wonder what trouble you'd get yourself into without me," L'Erena laughed, reaching over Even who'd found the book Lumaira had tucked into the front pocket of his bag to dig out the last Kit Kat.

Lumaira discretely pointed at Even. He was too immersed in words to notice.

"I thought you knew."

"Point taken."

"I'm going to go paddle in the stream."

"Don't get eaten by leeches again!"

"Even, coming with me?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Please?"

"Oh. Fine."

Lumaira grinned as he pulled off his shoes and threw them at L'Erena then carefully rolled up his trousers as Even did the same, then made his way up to the fjord in the stream where it widened for cars to drive through. He carefully picked through the rocks until the water lapped around his feet, then helped Even in.

"I'm not as delicate as you think I am, you know," The blonde huffed at Lumaira's display of careful attention. Lumaira giggled.

"You're not the only one who might fall over."

"Again!" Came the gleeful call from L'Erena on the bank. She'd picked the book up and was flicking through it, disinterested. It was one of those romance novels that Lumaira loved, with words that were never more than four syllables long and plots that even he could understand. L'Erena preferred horror, thick and macabre with blood and guts and a culprit you never discovered until the last page. Lumaira stuck her tongue out at her, and even managed to elicit a bit of a laugh from Even. It was an odd dance they were choreographing on tiptoes as they ducked under the stone bridge and splashed into the deeper water downstream, hands locked tightly together because it was easier to balance with four feet instead of two. Then Even spotted a fish and they were dead still waiting for another shimmer of tiny scales - there! And there! Once Lumaira had spotted one there were dozens, each barely an inch long, swimming around their toes.

"That's amazing," He breathed, leaning over for a closer look - but his shadow scared them away. Frowning, he instead reached into the water to pluck up a flat, rounded pebble. "Hey, Even. You ever skimmed pebbles?"  
Even shook his head.

"I've never even paddled before."

Hearing commotion, L'Erena had come over with her own shoes left on the bank, laughing.

"God, you're deprived. No wonder you killed yourself."

"Rennie's amazing at skimming," Lumaira quickly asserted before anybody could dwell on that blunt comment, passing her the stone he'd found and picking his way over to stack up more on the bridge. Even joined him, sitting down on the bank to watch, with his feet still in the cool, tinkling water.

"See?" Lumaira whispered once the pile was sufficiently tall, coming over to sit next to Even. "This is fun, isn't it?"

L'Erena had already sent the first pebble bouncing over the water and was eyeing up the flat surface of the stream for the second.

"Her record's fourteen," Lumaira boasted. "As for me, I did four, once."

Even was watching the procedure with a calculative eyes, and once he'd apparently determined the physics behind the stone's inexplicable leaps, sat back.

"Better than nothing."

Lumaira reached up to pull one stone from the bridge.

"You have a go."

"Okay."

Even waded out to stand next to Lumaira, squinting at her for a moment or two before he leaned down and sent his pebble on its way. It plinked over the water seven times before sinking with a heavy plop. Lumaira clapped from the bank.

"Better than I ever did!"

"You're just shit at everything," L'Erena laughed, splashing recklessly over to plonk herself in the flattened grass where Even had been sitting.

"Am not!"

"You throw like a girl, you catch like a girl, you scream like a girl..."

"Yeah, well you throw and catch like a boy."

"You're also terrible at insults. You're such a moron."

Their banter left Even standing a little bemused in the middle of the stream, the rolled hems his trousers hanging around his knobbly knees and hands lying by his sides. He watched the two friends for a few minutes, then dropped his gaze to inspect the bed of the stream through the clear, sparkling water.

"You know, he's not actually that bad," L'Erena mused after she caught Lumaira watching the lone boy. He smiled a little.

"I told you so. Now we just have to convince him that."

Even had squatted down to squint at the water, his bottom rather ungracefully in the air and his fingertips brushing the surface of the stream. Lumaira found it kind of adorable, so he stood and skittered along the bank, not risking the water in case he scared the fish away again.

"Watcha looking at?"

"I wish I'd brought my glasses."

"We can come up here again soon," Lumaira promised, paddling over to Even and leaning down just the same. "You know, somebody made a swing a little way downstream. We can walk there from here in the water."

He straightened out and took Even's hand again, hoping that Even didn't realise that he wasn't only holding it to help the other boy balance. L'Erena dutifully collected up his bag and its contents, stuffing it all inside and slinging it over Lumaira's shoulders, carrying all of their shoes in her arms as she joined them in the cool water. The last of the clouds had dispersed and the sun was beating steadily down on their backs, and were it not for the babbling stream around his legs Lumaira felt like he'd over heat. They paused for a bit under the shade of a hanging willow tree where the stream began to meander to strip off T shirts and slather on generous amounts of sun cream. Even seemed fairly comprehensively embarrassed about seeing L'Erena's bra, but Lumaira reassured him that this was perfectly acceptable because Rennie was an exhibitionist and of course it was exactly the same as seeing Lumaira topless - which, according to Even, wasn't okay either. But he was outvoted two to one and didn't have much of a say in the matter.

And of course, Lumaira wasn't disappointed at all that Even chose to keep all of his clothes on.

They reached the swing over the stream some time in the middle of the afternoon where L'Erena and Lumaira splashed each other in the water and Even decided to sit on the grass and dry out his feet.

"Hey, Even, want to go on the swing?"

"No thanks. It doesn't look safe anyway."

"That's the whole point! If you fall off, all you go into is the stream-"

"I don't want to get wet."

"Fine."

Lumaira sort of understood when he actually _did_ fall off and soak his clothes, then had to walk back to the entrance of the park with his trousers rubbing uncomfortably at his crotch. At least his T shirt and shoes were dry, though, which was enough to keep him happy as they boarded the bus and he tried not to make too much of a wet patch on his seat. L'Erena teased him relentlessly - until he sat on her lap.

Finally they arrived at their stop and bumbled off, sorting themselves out as the bus pulled away.

"That was good," L'Erena eventually declared once she'd pulled all of her things out of Lumaira's bag and awkwardly hugged him in an attempt to contract as little of his dampness as possible. "We should do something again, us three. Maybe go down to the beach at half term."  
"Yeah. See you on Monday."

"My Dad wants help with a delivery garage tomorrow, wanna join me?"

"I dunno, I'll ask Mum. She might need housework done."

"Kay. See you whenever, then. Ciao!"

L'Erena turned to make her way down the road, back up where the bus had come. Lumaira grinned, walking backwards to talk to Even.

"See? Wasn't that fun? And Rennie wants to go again. With us. And that includes you."

Even shrugged a little, but he was smiling, and Lumaira laughed a truthfully happy laugh as he skipped backwards into the road.


	7. Chapter 7

Several things happened in a split second, and in the sudden rush of pure adrenaline Even wasn't exactly sure what. A car. Lumaira in the road. The screech of tyres on tarmac. A scream. A dive, arms raised protectively, cries and the mad flash of insanity and instinct, and when the mist cleared Lumaira was gasping on the floor and Even's hands were splayed over the metal grille at the front of the car.

And it had crumpled and he _hadn't_.

As L'Erena sprinted over and grabbed Lumaira - shocked but uninjured - into a tight hug, Even carefully prised his hands away from the smoking wreck of the car. The driver, a middle aged man with hair too long, had rushed out fully ready to apologise profusely and presumably praying that there'd be no blood, saw the state of the bonnet and stopped, slackjawed. He searched for any object that could have caused such damage, and found none. Just three children in the middle of the road, one crying and being fussed over by the second, the third a foot or so in front of the car and looking quite comprehensively horrified, apparently by his own hands.

"Okay, what the hell happened?"

Even turned to look hopelessly at L'Erena, his eyes asking exactly the same question. Lumaira was babbling something about a car and Even running in front of it and there was lots of wild gesturing and wide eyes, presumably to compensate for the complete lack of sense.  
L'Erena carefully stood and walked over to the car. It was unmistakeable, the definite hand-size dents in the ruined metal. She looked at it for a few minutes, then carefully turned to the frozen Even.

"Oh my God. You just totalled a car with your bare hands."

The wail of sirens was sounding in the distance as a crowd gathered around, pointing and staring and whispering. Even slowly stretched out his legs, looked at them all, and promptly passed out into a dead faint.

* * *

_"-Amazing reports of a teenage boy destroying a car to save his friend! Here's the driver of the car, what happened?_

_I was driving along, just rounded the corner, then suddenly I saw this kid run into the road! Didn't have time to stop, thought I'd hit him then suddenly this other boy just ran in front of me and then the car jolted and next thing I knew I wasn't going anywhere! I ran outside to check if they were like, okay, and the kid that ran out was just standing in front of my wrecked car! There was nothing there to stop the car, just him an' his buddy!_

_Let's take a look at the car, and what looks like handprints dented into the metal! There's no way that any normal human being could do that kind of damage to a car going at thirty miles an hour. For legal reasons, the boy's name has been kept a secret - but what's _his_ secret?_

Even sighed as Lumaira reached over for the television remote and switched the overly enthusiastic news reporter off. On his lap was a newspaper article of exactly the same thing - _Boy Stops Car With Bare Hands?_

Even was sitting next to him, looking desolate. It had been two days since the incident with the car, and he'd not even come close to smiling since. Lumaira had quietly explained everything as best he could to Naminé the evening they arrived home and since then nobody in the house had uttered a single word about it. Now the Sunday paper had arrived with the headline splashed on the front and everybody at school was talking about it. Lumaira had been quizzed about it, but he just shook his head and lied that no, he didn't know anything more than anybody else did. L'Erena had the sense to say the same.

By now there were so many questions, even thinking about Even made Lumaira's head hurt.

Eventually, in the thickness of silence, he stood and made for the door.

"D'you want a drink?"

"Okay."

"Squash?"

"Sure."

Surreptitiously glancing at Even one last time, Lumaira nodded to himself in some sort of hopeless attempt at reassurance, and slipped out. Naminé was still in bed, due to get up in another hour or so, so soon he'd need to make her breakfast and his and Even's dinner. He did most of the cooking around the house, and enjoyed it.

Naminé, who knew what she was thinking? She must have assumed that Lumaira's insane babblings about what had happened were overexaggerations, but that was before she saw the photographs in the paper. At least the media had had the decency not to reveal Even's identity. That would have caused utter chaos.

Drinks poured, Lumaira returned to the sitting room where Even had tucked his knees up to his chin and was solemnly contemplating what must have been exactly the same thing as Lumaira. The pink haired boy gently passed him the full glass and sat down next to him.  
"You did the right thing."

"I broke a _car_."

"You saved my life."

Even glanced up at Lumaira, who smiled with genuine gratefulness.

"Yeah."

And he returned to staring at a blank space on the wall in between blu-tacked paperwork from the hospital and psychedelic artworks by Lumaira, aged seven. It was a while before he spoke again.

"It's just... I didn't even think about it. Why would I run in front of a car? I couldn't stop a car. If I was thinking, I would have tried to shove you out of the way at least. But I didn't. I didn't, I tried to stop the car. And succeeded."

Lumaira sadly shook his head. If Even didn't understand, then Lumaira would never have a chance.

"Why would I even think I could stop a car? I can hardly even lift a crate."

"Maybe you subconsciously knew?" Lumaira suggested. "I mean, you wouldn't have been able to push me out of the way and then get yourself out in time."

"It wouldn't have mattered if the car ran me over," Even stated matter of factly. "I'm already dead."

"It would have mattered to me," Lumaira insisted. Even glanced at him through slits of squinting eyes. Lumaira wished he'd wear his glasses more, but he knew better than to try to press Even about it.

"It doesn't matter now. Neither of us were hurt."

"I guess so."

"Maybe you're a superhero," Lumaira said after a while. Even rolled his eyes.

"Superheroes don't exist."

Lumaira shrugged philosophically.

"I'm not ruling anything out any more. Maybe you're a vampire?"

"Trust me, I have no desire to bite your neck."

"Awh. I might like that."

There was a horribly awkward silence.

"Sorry," Lumaira finally apologised, redfaced. "That was inappropriate."

"You shouldn't joke about things like that," Even said quietly, blushing equally heavily.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Lumaira wanted to pull Even into a hug, but he figured that that would be a very bad idea. So the best thing to do was probably change the subject.

"Maybe you're... um... maybe you're an angel or something."

"That's just stupid."

"A robot?"

"Robots don't bleed."

"Maybe you're a cyborg, then."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Lumaira sighed.

"Even, you came back from the dead. Right now, nothing is ridiculous."

"You still somehow manage it."

At that, Lumaira giggled, thankful for some sort of distraction from his sheer idiocy. But eventually he sobered up, not least because Even was shooting him a disdainful glare.

"Well, there's obviously something different about you. It's not just some one off event, either, because your scars disappeared too and now you saved me, too."

Even nodded non-committally and turned back to the wall. Lumaira had no choice but to tug him off the sofa and into the kitchen, digging out a recipe book and flicking through it.

"Mum's diet is really weird," He said. "She eats dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner. But apparently that's actually better for you."

"It is. The first meal of the day sets up your metabolism, so if it's a big one your body programs itself to burn a lot of fat throughout the day, expecting more." Even rallied off. "That's why, if you want to loose weight, you skip dinner and not breakfast."

Lumaira, who'd been skimming through the spaghetti carbonara recipe, stopped suddenly and glanced up.

"It wasn't what you-" He began, and trailed off. He still wasn't ever sure what to do about things like that, just try to pretend they never existed, or seriously sit down with Even one night and talk things out. But Even interrupted him anyway, with a shake of his head.

"To be honest, logical thought hardly came into it."

Lumaira felt like he'd ruined the conversation, and gently laid down the recipe book before giving Even a hug.

"You'll be okay," He promised fiercely. "No matter what it takes, I'll make things better."

To his surprise, he felt thin arms lie tentatively across his back.

"Yeah," Even whispered, and for once he sounded genuinely grateful, "I know."

Lumaira peeled himself away to look at Even's face. He was squinting like always, but there was a little smile on his lips in between threads of tears silently dripping down his cheeks. So Lumaira smiled too as he reached up to brush them away with his thumb.  
"Everything'll be okay. Now let's make spaghetti!"

"Way to ruin the atmosphere, Lumaira."

"I didn't ruin it! I just made it... more silly."

"You're good at silly, aren't you?"

"Very."

* * *

Tuesday was a half day and as soon as the last lesson ended L'Erena found herself dragged home by an overzealous Lumaira. Even was still at Lumaira's house as always, hanging the washing out in the back garden, and Lumaira was quick to join him. The pink haired boy's theories on Even had been slowly getting more and more outlandish since the incident with the car (which L'Erena was quietly impressed and more than a little jealous about) - his current favourite idea was that Even was an immortal alien who'd landed in a meteor fifteen years ago, which was only marginally more stupid than the one about him being a changeling faerie.

L'Erena quite liked to imagine that Even was a zombie and it was only a matter of time before he decided to snack on Lumaira's brain in the middle of the night. It made just as much sense as anything else.

She'd become half a housewife for Lumaira, so it was nothing new to be spending the afternoon hoovering the stairs or tidying up the sitting room in Naminé's practical absence - and clearly, Even had resigned himself to the same fate. He seemed faintly surprised at all this bustling activity about the house at all hours of the day, quiet as it was with Lumaira's mother sleeping upstairs. L'Erena found it amusing how much he floundered in this new environment.

As Lumaira made a salad for lunch with strips of chicken and tons of vinaigrette, Even tentatively shuffled over to L'Erena, who was wiping down the bookshelf in the front room.

"H-Hey. L'Erena."

"You can call me Rennie, you know."

"Oh. Okay, well. Um. Rennie."

Even wasn't terribly good at nicknames, the poor thing. L'Erena was pleasantly surprised to find that he wasn't as insufferable as she'd always just assumed; in fact, the most annoying thing about him was his sheer lack of confidence. Even Lumaira had more of a spine than he did.

"Yeah?"

"Do you always do this? I mean, you and Lumaira, are you always this busy?"

L'Erena laughed, chucking her cloth somewhere and flopping onto the sofa.

"Sure. We help my Dad out a lot at the garage, too. Why?"

"It's just a lot different to what I used to do," Even admitted, about which he seemed to be embarrassed.

"Why, what did you spend your time doing?"

"Um. Mostly computer games."

"What, all the time?"

"Yeah. There wasn't really much else to do."

"Didn't you help your Mum out with the housework?"

Even shrugged uncomfortably.

"We had a cleaner."

"Oh." L'Erena said, resisting the urge to add _some people have it all_. Even sighed to himself, and came over to sit at the other end of the sofa.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I'd actually had friends."

"You must have had _some_ friends," L'Erena said without thinking. Even curled up into a ball, tucking his knees to his chin and his chin to his chest.

"Nobody ever liked me."

Looking at Even squint miserably at his feet, long hair lying limply around his face, L'Erena suddenly understood Lumaira's desperate, painful dedication to the boy. He was right, nobody deserved to be so lonely, to think so little of themselves. L'Erena had had her moments when things at home were tense, but she'd always had to be strong for Lumaira and his mother, for her dysfunctional parents and her alcoholic uncle, for all her friends at school and at the park, and most of all for herself. And now, it looked like she was going to be defending a new member of her family - Even. She smiled to herself at the thought as she leaned over to gently pat Even's shoulder.

"Lumaira likes you," She said. "Lumaira really cares about you. You've made a big impression on him. And I like you, too. We're friends now, right?"

Even looked up, surprised.

"I thought you hated me."

L'Erena shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I guess we were both wrong."

She pulled away from Even, who apparently needed some time to digest this bombshell, and levered herself out of the sofa, grinning.

"Come on, let's go harass Lumaira."

"But-"

"Trust me. He adores the attention."

* * *

Things were just carrying on like always, Lumaira thought as he curled up in the unoccupied half of Naminé's bed on Thursday. Somebody had decided that those photographs of the car were photoshopped or the driver was hallucinating or _something_, and Naminé came home one morning to sleepily whisper that she checked for Even Carlisle on the hospital database at work and it didn't even so much as mention a visit the night he supposedly died. It must have been some kind of human nature, to ignore anything they couldn't explain. Even Even himself was just continuing his new life like he'd always been a somewhat timid part of the household. Whatever Rennie thought, she wasn't vocalising it, and Lumaira wasn't even sure how his own mind was coping with what had happened. But time hadn't stopped just for the resurrection of a dead boy, so the world was just continuing as it always had, oblivious or tided away by the stream of bustling activity.

But things were getting better; that was certainly true. Each day, Even looked a little healthier, and when Lumaira finally convinced him to climb onto the bathroom scales, it was obvious that he was slowly gaining weight.  
With things coming together, Lumaira eventually decided that more needed to happen. Like getting Even a decent pair of glasses. The ones from the hospital were wearable, but Even clearly abhorred them and Lumaira was sure that it was hardly good for him to be walking around half-blind everywhere. So he'd called up the opticians that evening to arrange an eye test for Even on Monday. He thought that it would be wonderful for Even's eyesight to improve so he wouldn't have to wear glasses at all - but that was clearly impossible, no matter how much he wished for it. Then again, Even _had_ risen from the dead... and if that was possible, why not correcting his eyesight? And maybe Lumaira passing all of his exams wasn't too much to ask for, either?

* * *

L'Erena called in sick to school on Friday, so Lumaira dragged Even around to her house with some chocolate and a get well card and they spent the evening there, playing video games in her room while she stayed safely tucked up in bed. L'Erena, Lumaira knew, hated being ill - so she'd never allow herself to be bedridden unless it was serious. But she laughed just like always, even if her voice was a little hoarse, so Lumaira allowed himself not to worry too much. It was just a throat infection, the doctor said after a quick inspection as he handed her a prescription leaflet and took his leave. And even Lumaira eventually had to admit that the blissful joy of mucking around with his old and new best friends couldn't last forever, and reluctantly carried a sleepy Even home. He couldn't articulate how glad he was that L'Erena hadn't stubbornly decided to hate Even; it had vastly improved the older boy's condition to have not only Lumaira declaring him _friend_, but L'Erena too. He was getting better, looking healthier, smiling a little more.

So there the two boys were on Monday after school, hanging around in the optician's shop and inspecting glasses as they waited for Even's appointment. The shop was empty, the glass windows blanketing the hustle and bustle of the street outside. Lumaira had plucked out all the nicest sets of glasses and pushed them onto Even's face - his favourites were a sleek rectangular pair with thin frames that sat nicely on Even's nose, but they were close to seventy pounds. Lumaira could never afford that, so he was forced to resign them back to the shelf and look at the ones he would actually have a chance of raising enough money to buy. He wasn't looking to make a purchase today - just getting Even's eyes checked out so at least they knew what to look for.  
He was just inspecting the aisle of sunglasses as a small commotion sounded behind him, the lines of which were both familiar and chilling.

"Even Carlisle? That- that must be a mistake. He was the boy who... you know... remember?"

Lumaira gulped as the optician, a lovely young lady with flowing brunette hair tied into a bow, turned the corner from the private rooms of the shop and paled to deathly white.

"E-Even."

Even, who'd been closely examining one pair of glasses the way he always did, looked - squinted - up.

"Hullo, Miss Gainsborough."

"You, erm," The optician began, floundering a little for words as a nervous smile just about reached her lips. "You got better, I see."

"Yes," Even replied curtly with a glance at Lumaira. The optician laughed a little, shoulders sagging into a more relaxed position and she mothered him into the little booth with all kinds of equipment Lumaira, with twenty-twenty vision, had never seen before. He slunk into the back and waited against one corner, giving Even a reassuring smile.

"You're one of Even's friends?"

For once, Lumaira truthfully grinned as he shook the opticians hand, because when he nodded it was true. Even had friends. Granted, only two, but friends nonetheless.

"Yeah. I'm Lulu."

"Lulu," The optician chuckled, clearly amused by Lumaira's effeminate nickname. She bobbed her head and turned to Even. Lumaira let his eyes wander as he switched off from the routine checks and murmurs of surprise, letting his fingers lace and unlace idly behind his back. A clap of hands brought him back as the optician stood back and filed away the last of her clicking instruments, smiling.

"There's a definite improvement," She said, sounding impressed. "I daresay you'll be able to get away with wearing standard glasses now - but I wouldn't recommend it."

Even looked genuinely surprised as Lumaira and he returned to the shop and filled out some fairly useless paperwork. The optician gave him a few pairs of glasses for him to try out but the ones that were best for his eyes were all too expensive.

"What's the standard thing?" Lumaira asked as they meaninglessly browsed, a few more people wandering in and out of the shop as they pootled along the shelves.

"Magnification," Even autonomously corrected. "It's the ones you can buy in normal shops."

"And you could - potentially - wear them?"

Even nodded, frowning again.

"I'm sure my eyes are nowhere near that good, though."

They wandered out.


	8. Chapter 8

And Lumaira didn't think that things ever really worked that way, not outside the impossible realms of Hollywood movies, but with Even they did, a few weeks later and nearly the end of term. They were spending the afternoon carrying stock into the garage shop for L'Erena's Dad and Lumaira had just stopped for a drink when he looked at Even, hauling a cardboard box into his spindly arms, and suddenly he realised that the boy, with elfin hair and thin lips, eyes narrowed into his signature squint, was almost beautiful.

It didn't seem possible that the ghostlike boy, lost and dying just a few months ago, could become beautiful. He wasn't elegant, his body with all its sickly, angular sharpness, wasn't pleasing to the eye; his skin was insipid and his eyes were hollowed but he was just somehow _different_.

Lumaira took a long, mindful sip of his soda and leaned over to L'Erena.

"He's changed a lot, hasn't he?"

And it couldn't just have been him, because L'Erena, after a moment's hesitation, nodded.

"Yeah. You've sure got a magic touch or something, Lulu."

Lumaira giggled a little. If anybody was magic, it was Even. He was the one who'd come back from the dead, after all.

"I suppose he's just happier."

"Wearing clothes that actually suit him..."

"... Acne's clearing up a bit."

"'S put on weight, too,"

"- Got some colour to his skin..."

L'Erena caught her best friend's expression then and laughed, punching his shoulder.

"Somebody's got a crush."

"Have not!" Lumaira spluttered just as Even warily approached with a mixture of confusion and worry on his face. The conversation ended there, but Lumaira couldn't help but secretly wonder if there was something else behind Even's change than just living a life that didn't dictate to a broken boy with ugly contortions of emotional pain all over his body.

But he had no idea. _Nobody_ had any idea, they just thought whatever private thoughts about who Even really was and where he had really come from, and let him into their lives. It looked as though Even was just going to _be_ from now on and nobody would ever be any the wiser for the conditions of his return.

* * *

One evening they grabbed torches and trekked up to the reserve with a cool box and Thermos flasks, and sat atop the steel limestone cliffs to watch the sun disappear around a portable meal of lukewarm pasta and sugar-saturated tea. Lumaira's dying bag was full to bursting point with extra clothes in between all the plastic bowls and cutlery and the other two thanked him for it as they pulled on spare sweaters and scarves until L'Erena was pregnant and Even was a marshmallow. They'd find their way home by torchlight later, sneak into Lumaira's empty house and curl up together on the sofa. But for now they lay against each other's shoulders, passing around the flask and talking amiably to one another.

"So, Even, you got any spooky stories?"

Even, mulling over his plastic cup of tea, glanced up.

"Huh? Oh, I'm not a very good story teller..."

"Go on! Give it a try!"

"Well," Even said a little doubtfully, "I... I suppose I can have a go. There is this one story I know, apparently it's true and all."

L'Erena laughed outright.

"Hah, yeah right. But, go on ahead."

Even cleared his throat and looked up into the night sky.

"There was this boy, once. He was popular at school, although he was unpleasant and disrespectful. And there was one other boy he loved to always pick on, because he was small and didn't have any friends. Really, everybody teased him. And so, well, one day he didn't come in to school and the boy who always laughed at him joked that maybe he'd killed himself. But a teacher overheard him and his friends, and he told the boy that he shouldn't disrespect the dead. The boy was kind of confused about that because nobody had died, he was joking... but after that, he was spooked all day. And the lonely boy didn't come in the next day, or the next day, or the next... and the bully started to worry that maybe something awful really had happened to him. And... well... this is just what I heard, but apparently the next week the boy _did_ come into school. At least the bully thought so. But nobody else could see him. It was just an empty chair. This guy just started screaming at an empty chair. They had to take him away in the end. You know."

There was an awkward pause.

"You- You didn't-" Lumaira began, and faltered. Even glanced down at the steep bank falling below them and suddenly seemed to shrink.

"When I was little I used to hope that maybe if I died I could haunt the people that hurt me," He whispered. "But that's where the similarities end."

Suddenly shaky, Lumaira leaned over and pulled the bundle of clothes that was Even into his arms. Salty tears were pricking at the corners of the older boy's eyes and Lumaira wanted to kiss them away, crawl in beneath all the layers and layers to find Even underneath and hold him close until the sun rose again.

In a moment he caught himself and a blush shot to his face. Even seemed to take this as some kind of frustration and slumped even further.

"I'm sorry. I've ruined everything again."

Lumaira shushed him, reaching under two hoods to stoke at his hair.

"You haven't. It's not your fault."

"I shouldn't have said that..."

"It's okay, that's all over now. Cheer up."

When comforting didn't work, Lumaira glanced desperately at L'Erena. He felt uncomfortable in his half-hug with Even, unrequited and awkward. She shrugged at him, unhelpfully. He returned to Even, wallowing in self pity again.

"Maybe it's time we should be heading home."

"No," Even spluttered miserably. "That's not fair on you,"

Lumaira pulled him closer, tucking Even's head into the crook of his neck. He fitted there.

"I don't mind,"

"By the time we got home it'd be to awkward anyway," Even half-huffed, but he was muted by his close proximity to the other boy. "... You're freezing."

Lumaira shrugged. He'd given away all the extra clothes to L'Erena and Even.

"I don't mind."

Lumaira felt rather than saw Even frown against his skin, and moments later he pulled away, tugging his jackets open and fairly forcing Lumaira's hand inside. The pink haired boy's face exploded into a scarlet flush, and for once he was glad of the darkness enshrouding them as the two boys shuffled close enough to share their warmth. Lumaira hoped that Even wouldn't mind the way his hand took to gently stroking the warm skin beneath his fingertips and through just one thin cotton shirt. He didn't seem to.

There was a lull in the conversation, but a natural one this time, brought on by three minds thinking separate and similar thoughts, gazing out across the darkened fields. Eventually, it was L'Erena who spoke up.

"I had a weird dream last night," She said in the tone of voice of somebody who'd been meaning to say something all day but had only now remembered.

"Oh?" Lumaira asked, raising his chin from Even's hair. "Really?"

"It was one of the ones like you had," L'Erena replied. "You know, with the people."

Even cracked an eye open.

"What people?"

"Oh, Lumaira has really weird dreams. Don't you, Lulu?"

"It's not that weird, it's just because they're all the same-"

"- He dreams that people are watching him sleep-"

"- They're not really people. They sort of glow. And they just watch me. Sometimes they talk but I don't know what they're saying."

Even watched the two of them babble on for a minute or two before they ran out of things to say about how strange Lulu was, and why did one of them always look a bit like his father, anyway, then turned away and sighed.

"I never dream."

"What, never?"

This seemed preposterous to the other two, who more or less stared at their taller companion.

"Well, apart from nightmares when I was little," Even admitted. "At least, if I do dream, I don't ever remember it."

"That's kinda sad," Lumaira said softly, taking Even's posture as an opportunity to lean against his bony shoulder. It dug into his cheek and that was the excuse he prepared as his head slid almost naturally down to feel Even's heart beat through his chest. His own heart nearly skipped a beat when a shy hand crept across his back and inched him just a little closer. And dearly, he wished that Even felt the same way.

"My dreams are usually pretty morbid," L'Erena said to the world at large. "Zombies and dead people and stuff."

Lumaira froze.

"Rennie," He half whispered, half whined, "Don't mention zombies, it's cold and dark and we're miles away from anything. Now I'm scared."

"Even can fight them away with his car-crushing hands," L'Erena laughed, patting Lumaira's back. Her hand caught the ends of Even's fingertips. "What are you two doing, canoodling without me?"

Lumaira dragged L'Erena into the quickly expanding pile of limbs and swathes of fabric.

"Not any more."

They stayed up at the top of the hill until Lumaira was shuddering with the cold, then dragged him back home for hot chocolate and a movie they all knew they'd never stay awake to see the end of.

* * *

... And time passed. School finished and every day Even looked a little better, a little less fragile like if he took a wrong step he'd simply splinter and fall apart. Naminé took him back to the hospital for a check up - he came back healthier than ever.

Tentatively, Lumaira decided to take a plunge and brace the subject of parents.

"H-hey, Even."

It was the awkward transition in the evening between Lumaira and Even migrating upstairs and Naminé leaving for work, and the two boys were curled up in Lumaira's duvet chatting aimlessly.

"Huh? What?"

Lumaira swallowed thickly.

"Do... d'you want to meet your parents again?"

Even, who'd been fiddling with the hem of his borrowed pyjamas, stopped suddenly.

"Lumaira, they think I'm _dead_." He said shakily. "I.. I can't just walk in and expect them to believe I'm me, can I?"

"_I_ believe you're you," Lumaira unwittingly argued.

"You haven't not seen me for months," Even whispered, voice close to cracking. "I can't. I couldn't. Never."

And tears bubbled up in his eyes and splashed across his cheeks. Feeling awful, Lumaira reached over and looped his arms around Even.

"I'm sorry," He said miserably. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"They never cared," Even muttered sourly into Lumaira's neck as he wriggled around to slot more comfortably against the thicker set boy. And then, so quietly that Lumaira very nearly almost didn't even hear, "I miss them."

Lumaira half coughed, half smiled.

"I miss my Dad too. And I haven't even met him."

Amazingly, this elicited a short chuckled from Even, thick though it was. Bony arms pressed harder against his back, fingers definitive pressure points against his skin. For a while, neither of them spoke.

"I don't want to go to bed," Even eventually mumbled, shifting against Lumaira.

"You're already in bed," Lumaira laughed - and indeed they were, huddled under the duvet in their own little world.

"I mean my own bed," Even said, referring to the one in Naminé's room.

"I could go sleep in Mum's room and you can stay here," Lumaira offered. He didn't care. He'd sleep anywhere that was convenient. But Even didn't seem to like this, holding Lumaira ever tighter.

"I'd still be alone."

Without thinking, Lumaira flopped backwards until their heads shared the pillow.

"There," He said brightly. "Now we're both ready for bed and neither of us are alone."

Even smiled a little through his saltwater-muddied cheeks and curled up against Lumaira's side. Lumaira couldn't believe it; just a week or so after L'Erena had first said that word - _crush_ - and now, he was propped up on the pink haired boy's ribs, breathing softly, eyes closed almost peacefully to the world.

And he really _was_ beautiful, in a way that only Even could be, with long, straight features and an elflike ethereality. Lumaira reached over and softly brushed his hand his hand across Even's cheek. He murmured a little to himself and shifted, cracking one squinting eye open.

"You don't mind, do you,"

"Not at all," Lumaira promised. He wasn't lying. Even nodded and settled back once more. Lumaira glanced up; one of them was going to have to get up in a minute to draw the curtains and turn off the light - but Lumaira didn't want to. Even's presence, warm and heavy, was reassuring, and he didn't want to move at all. So he lay in the bright artificial light as there was movement a few rooms away as Naminé woke and readied herself for work. Lumaira rested his focus on Even, memorising every feature of the boy who had spent so long unnoticed. And just when he thought Even was asleep, he harumphed a little and spoke.

"Hey, Lumaira."

"Yeah?"

"Are you- just... just wondering if you were still awake."

"I'm here," Lumaira murmured.

"L-Lumaira," Even asked haltingly, "Are you... I mean, uh, are you... you know. Are you gay."

Lumaira suddenly felt horribly self conscious. It wasn't that the question was too personal; he'd always tried to be open about that kind of thing, but it was not the kind of thing he wanted called into question while he was in bed with Even. He'd been enjoying the moment, and he didn't want the truth ruining it now.

Sensing Lumaira's hesitation, Even frowned a little.

"You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," He whispered. Lumaira was quick to shake his head.

"It's not that," He insisted a little too quickly. "I just... I dunno if it's the right time to be asking that kind of question when we're cuddling in bed."

Even pulled his arms close to himself, ducking his head to hide his reddening face.

"I was sort of hoping that if the answer was yes, then it could be more than-"

He stopped suddenly and tore himself away from Lumaira.

"I'm such an idiot."

Cogs turned inside Lumaira's mind and abruptly, he sat up, reaching out to touch Even but stopping himself just in time.

"Wait," He said quietly. "Are you?"

Even turned back a little, eyes already streaming again. He stared at Lumaira for a moment, eyes wide, then toppled into the shorter boy's chest.

"That was the worst thing about it," He managed through heavy sobs. "Nobody would ever have known."

Lumaira shushed him, comforting him in the only way he knew how: holding him close, hands running gently through his hair.

"I wanted to tell somebody," Even continued miserably. "But I couldn't. There was nobody... nobody..."

"You've got me now," Lumaira promised in between murmuring comforting noises in Even's ear. And slowly, he managed to coax Even back to smiling a little, eyes dry and breaths deep. And that was what Lumaira was best at; he might have been easily scared and hardly the top scorer at school, but he knew how to comfort people. Particularly gay people.

"I know how hard it is to come out," He whispered as Even buried his face in his neck, feeling each bump of a vertebrae as he ran his palm down Even's spine. "But trust me, it's better once you do."

"You don't mind, do you?" Even eventually asked, backing away and rubbing at his eyes. Lumaira laughed.

"Even, of course I don't mind. I _am_ gay. Why would I mind?"

"Oh," Even said. "Oh, I thought that you were just- um. Oh. Really?"

"I have pink hair," Lumaira said, "I like flowers, I'm incredibly girly and I enjoy doing housework, of course I'm gay."

"I don't like to stereotype," Even huffed, crossing his arms in a manner that forced Lumaira to stifle a giggle. "I'm sure there are loads of perfectly straight guys who are like you."

Lumaira ignored the fact that that meant he really _was_ a stereotypical homosexual (all he needed was the lisp), and nodded to himself.

"Well, anyway, I am."

There was a pause. Even shifted his weight around a little.

"Well," He said, "This is awkward."

Lumaira glanced over at Even. He was blushing.

"C'mon," He said after a moment, "Don't you want to cuddle?"

Numbly, Even nodded and stretched out his arms. Lumaira gladly welcomed him, and they tumbled into a close embrace together, Even half lying on top of Lumaira's chest. Lumaira liked it that way. He felt like he was protecting Even, and it was heartwarming to see his flaxen hair fanning over Lumaira's pyjamas, his hand splayed across Lumaira's breastpocket.

It wasn't until after they'd settled that Lumaira remembered the light. But they were comfortable now, and an exhaustive drowsiness had settled on Even's features. So Lumaira just laid back and closed his eyes.

Twenty odd minutes passed before Naminé tiptoed into Lumaira's room to find the two boys blissfully tangled in each other's limbs. Smiling a little, she brushed Lumaira's fluffy hair aside and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His eyes fluttered open and after a sheepish glance at the sleeping Even, flashed her a truthfully happy smile.

"Good night, sweetheart," She whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of Even's head, too.

"Night, Mum."

She crept around the bed to draw the curtains, and left with a flick of the light switch that plunged the room into cosy darkness.

* * *

Two weeks later, Lumaira and Even were hanging out the washing when the subject of parents came up again.

"Do you think I'll ever see them again?" Even asked as he plucked out the last odd sock. Lumaira shrugged.

"I don't see why not. I mean, all you could tell them would be the truth, right? It might be messy at first, but... it'd be worth a try, right?"

Even nodded a little.

"Yeah. I suppose so."

Lumaira was halfway up to the line, peg in hand, when Naminé appeared at the back door, face oddly grey.

"Lumaira, sweetheart, you need to come over here."

Lumaira reached back for Even's hand and pulled him in from the garden, heart already fluttering with worry. Naminé looked shocked, almost numb.

"What happened?"

"I've had a call from the hospital," She said, voice choked. "There... there was an explosion at the petrol station, and..."

"Rennie," Lumaira instantly insisted. "Is Rennie okay?"

"They did their best," Naminé said in that tone of voice that meant _no_. "I'm so sorry..."

Lumaira paled, fist clenching around Even's fingers so tightly that he yelped. Tears pressed at the corners of his eyes, bled down his cheeks.

"We have to get to the hospital," He said grimly. "Now."


	9. Chapter 9

Lumaira was sobbing openly by the time they reached the hospital, leaning on Even for support as though if he weren't there he'd simply collapse. The older boy's face was strained into emotionlessness, lips tight and eyes dark. L'Erena's burns had been too severe: they'd become fatal in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Three customers had been injured but she was the only fatality.

"She'll come back," Lumaira was mumbling to himself over and over, like a mantra. "You came back, Even, she'll come back too."

But they both knew that Even came back because he was _different_, and L'Erena was just an ordinary girl.

They reached the hospital in good time, hurried up to the correct ward. L'Erena's parents where there, damp-eyed and incomplete. Lumaira saw them and knew that this was it, _it_, and if Even couldn't do something L'Erena would be gone forever.

He didn't want L'Erena to be gone. She was his best friend, his soul mate that always kept him going when he was lonely and where was she now to cheer him up? She was _dead_.

Lumaira pressed his palm tightly against his mouth lest an inhuman howl escape from his throat. It wasn't fair, it wasn't _fair_, if anybody deserved to live it was Rennie, it ought to have been somebody else, it ought to have been _him_, it ought to have been anyone but her.

A nurse dropped past with a trolley of medications, whispered her condolences. Naminé over in another corner was having a hushed conversation with a stoic doctor. L'Erena's parents were silent in their grief.

Lumaira turned to Even, slumped in one of the hospital's cheap plastic seats.

"You have to bring her back," He said as quietly as he could manage through his tight, staticky voice. "Even, you have to bring her back."

Even didn't look up, lifting his feet up onto the rim of the chair and curling his arms around his knees. He was silent for a long time.

"I can't," He finally squeaked.

"You've got to! It's her only chance-"

"I _can't_," Even insisted again. "I don't know how, Lumaira. I don't _know_, I can't just bring people back..."

"_You_ came back!" Lumaira hissed, anger and injustice rising up inside him. "You could at least do the same for her!"

Even glanced up, expression mortified. There were tears, Lumaira suddenly saw, ugly streaks across his reddened face.

"I don't know how," He said again, hopelessly, voice cracking even in a whisper. "I didn't even _want_ to come back-"

"You have to try," Lumaira interrupted. "I won't lose her, not _now_, not _ever_. You have to bring her back."

"I can't," Even repeated, as if that made everything okay.

"It's not fair," Lumaira muttered under his breath, fists tightly clenched. "It's not fair, how come _you_ came back? Why not _Rennie_? It's not _fair_! Nobody even _likes_ you!"

He didn't mean to yell. He didn't mean to unleash the horrible, unfounded thoughts that had been bubbling in his head since the call from the hospital. But he was too angry, too Goddamned _furious_ at himself and the doctors and life and Even and the world that he didn't even have the guts to swallow his pride and apologise.

Even stood, silently. He opened his mouth once, twice, three times to speak, but nothing more came out than a shaky little sob. Then he turned tail and fled, ran down the corridor and nearly into a poor octogenarian making his way on a zimmer frame.

Too late, Lumaira remembered himself, remembered Even, realised that he'd ruined everything and now he could be losing not just one best friend, but both of them.

"Wait-!" He yelled desperately, hopelessly. Even was gone. "I didn't... I didn't mean that..."

He turned miserably back to Naminé, shoulders sagging. He couldn't follow Even now; the hospital complex was far too vast, the world outside huger still. But he couldn't ignore the wriggling doubts in his mind that Even would try to… but he'd come back again. Wouldn't he?

Naminé gently rested her hand on his shoulder and for a moment he needed her, to cry into her chest. He clung to the fabric of her nurse's uniform, the textiles in his fists real and secure.

"It's not pretty," Naminé eventually whispered. Lumaira shook his head. He knew that.

"I want to see her. Just one more time."

* * *

Even ran.

Even ran, letting his legs carry him anywhere, anywhere that wasn't with Lumaira or L'Erena's dead body or helplessness. The hospital disappeared behind his fuzzy sight, tarmac marking his path as he ran. Because ever since his funeral, all he'd been doing was hiding from the truth: Lumaira was right. Nobody liked him; nobody had _ever_ liked him and nobody ever would. The new resolution to die - and _properly_ this time - surged through his veins, and he ran, through the car park and out past the little parade of shops, down an alleyway and through a street lined with pretty, middle class houses.

But worse than that was the knowledge that he was alive and L'Erena was dead. He _wanted_ to bring her back, he wanted to see Lumaira smile the way he always smiled around his best of all best friends - but he didn't know how. It _burned_, because L'Erena had people all around her who truly loved her and Even was just another lonely, ungrateful bastard.

It wasn't until his feet stopped of his own accord that he realised he'd taken himself home. Not his new home with Naminé and Lumaira; his old house where his old parents lived and his old life had disintegrated into nothing. Neither of the cars were in the drive and Even knew where the spare key was hidden, tucked between the wires of a lively hanging basket. He dislodged it, unlocked the door and slipped inside.

It hadn't really changed. The hall was just the same, the smell of ecological cleaning fluid and books hanging in the air. That was his peg by the door, where he used to hang his coat and leave his shoes - empty now. He crept into the kitchen where everything sparkled, neat and tidy like some scaled-up doll's house, and there at the back of the cupboard was his mug, waiting all this time to be filled with hot chocolate and creamy milk. And there was the living room, a new television and -

He noticed something on the mantelpiece. A little framed photograph, words etched atop the image. It was a picture of him, when he was younger and when he still smiled, with big round glasses to match his little round face.

_In loving memory, Even Carlisle._

Even stared at the tiny memorial for a long time, then fell to the sofa and cried until the world seemed distant and suicide felt like a dream. Then he stood, methodically, and climbed the stairs, hands sliding along the rail so familiarly as though he'd never left at all.

He'd wondered a few times what his parents might have done with his room. Made it into another office, maybe, a storage room, or perhaps a spare bedroom. Standing in front of his own door for a few moments, now devoid of the little plaque adorned with his name, he fleetingly imagined that maybe it would be his own body still lying there, forgotten, with wrists lacerated and blood seeping into the sheets, and he was nothing more than a ghost.

He pressed down the handle and slipped inside, feeling like part of some insane, lucid dream.

It was still his room. Still his school notes from months ago tacked to the walls, with a few new additions of some of his stupid little childish dreams pinned on top. A drawing of himself, aged six, with a long white lab coat and goggles. A poster he'd hidden away years ago, all the places a degree in chemistry could take you. Photographs he'd taken and forgotten about. Artworks, stories, exam papers with pretty little green one-hundred-percents circled in the corner. The room was tidy, the bed made with his own pyjamas folded neatly on his pillow. Somebody had come in here, cleaned the place up as though the boy it belonged to would someday return from the dead and turn up hoping for a good night's sleep.

And there were all his books back up on the shelf that he'd stuffed into boxes, ashamed of his passions for genetics and quantum physics. And all his old action figures on another shelf, crowed around in a display of Ultimate Showdown resemblance just like he used to toy with them and his dad's camera when he was young.

There were his glasses, too, lying on the bedside table. Even slotted them onto his face and the world slid into perfect focus. They felt right.

He left the rest as it was, but not before he'd found a pen and a few sheets of lined paper, scrawling a note in his distinctive handwriting. He folded the letter neatly, pressed it into a new envelope. On the front he wrote simply, _Mum and Dad_. He tacked it to the wall above the chemistry poster and left, a poltergeist slipping through doors and leaving no evidence bar a few lines of writing out of place.

He let his legs take him where they would, following only his heart. He found himself tracking the bus route to the reserve and once he knew where he was going he once again broke into a run. It wasn't a desperate run. He simply ran because he could, because the heave of his lungs was somewhat comforting, the ache in his legs and chest human and real. And he ran through the gates to the reserve, down the path and through the meadows until he reached the stream. In the late afternoon it seemed almost magical, little insects flitting across the still water of the fjord and birds chirping in the leafy boughs of nearby trees. Even pulled off his shoes and socks and slipped into the stream until the cool water came halfway up his shins. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply for what seemed like the first time in years, and left the current sweep past him.

"Whoever you are," He said after a few minutes, his voice sounding odd to his own ears, "Whoever you are who brought me back, I need… I need your help again."

Of course there was no reply. Just a whisper in the trees that nearly sounded like words only because Even wished they would. But still, something drove himself to speak again, out to the empty reserve if only because then he could hear himself.

"However you brought me back, I _need_ you to do the same for L'Erena. Lumaira can't survive without her, and… and I can't survive without him."

Suddenly he sounded stupid, felt a fool. He fell to his knees, the water splashing his clothes and soaking his skin. The rocks on the riverbed scraped him, left a trickle of blood seeping through the water.

"There has to be some way!" He yelled to the murmuring wind in the grass, to the buzzing crickets and the flitting dragonflies. "Goddamn it, why did you have to bring me back? Why _me_?"

_There's no point asking me that_, something said. For a second, Even thought he was hearing things. He stood, turned shakily, but nobody was there.

"Hello?" He eventually called, hoping for another confirmative reply. "Who's there?"

_I am_, came the dreamlike, unearthly reply.

Something was out there.

Something that could speak and something that couldn't be seen.

Even clenched his fists and unclenched them a few times. He didn't want to admit that sweat was beading on his forehead, that his heart was pounding.

"Who are you?" He asked. "Why am I alive? Why did I come back?"

There was a long pause in the silence that was almost thoughtful. Even hissed to himself, eyebrows creasing.

"What's going _on_?"

_Patience, young one,_ the voice said softly. A breeze picked up, blustered around Even's body, fingers of wind caressing his cheek.

"Why don't you tell me the truth?" He demanded. He wasn't going to have come this far, to have hurt so much, for nothing.

_Lumaira knows the answers._

The wind dropped, suddenly. Even felt alone.

He tried to remember the voice, how it sounded. It felt like he'd imagined everything, like he was dreaming again. Nothing was concrete. The words had no tone, no characteristics; they were just sentences that appeared in his ears and confused his mind.

"Damn it."

He imagined a softness to the whispering voice, a deep baritone and a polite, well spoken diction. He imagined full lips, a solid, noble jaw and dusty brunette hair. Blue eyes, bottomless, not quite of this world.

He jolted, suddenly. Lumaira? Not Lumaira. Not quite. Older, wiser, a melancholy depth in the gaze he pictured.

He didn't understand. Old sci-fi movies swam into his mind, the future, the past, aliens, robots, cloning and poisons and miracle cures, and most of it was stupid and all of it was close but none of it was _quite_ the truth.

He dragged himself from the cooling stream, dried the worst of the water from his legs with his shirt, then pulled on his socks and stuffed his feet into his shoes. He could practically feel the answers just beyond his grasp, so tantalisingly, mockingly close.

It was time to run again.

* * *

Everything was silent in the hospital ward as Lumaira slipped inside. A nurse was just performing a few last checks but she soon slipped out, leaving him alone. For several minutes he avoided the bed, inspecting instead the blank line of the heart monitor or the hastily purchased flowers lying on the window sill. And then, finally, he pulled himself into the chair by the bed and brought his eyes to rest on his best friend.

It was worse than seeing Even in his own blood, because at least Even's face had still been intact. The fire had bitten hungrily into her skin, leaving patches of burned skin that were blackened and charred. Lumaira was quick to look away, remembering instead L'Erena's face when she was pretty, when she smiled and laughed and looked so utterly beautiful. It was a long time before Lumaira could even focus on her hand, wrought with burns and damage from the explosion.

"H-hey," He said haltingly. "I miss you already."

And he gingerly took her cauterised hand, blanching at the rough texture of her ruined skin, and cried all over again. He tried to speak to her like she was still listening but he _couldn't_, not even half words escaping the closed prison of his throat. He wanted to tell her how there was still hope because Even came back, and he wanted to tell her that he accidentally yelled at him and felt awful for it, that he really did like the odd boy, it wasn't just pity, and he missed her wanted her back missed her couldn't live his life without her missed her missed her _missed her_.

His fingers curled so tightly around her palm that it hurt _him_, and tried to somehow express is grief or turn that sickening burning in his gut into something that could change things, that could make a difference, that could heal L'Erena's burns away and bring her back and have Even by his side and make Even see that Lumaira honestly _loved_ him.

"I tried to get Even to help you," He said when he could finally speak again. He imagined L'Erena was just sleeping, tired from having to deal with the antics of her effeminate best friend, because even if it would hurt more later the pretending comforted him for a moment then. "I said that maybe he could bring you back too like he came back but he said he didn't know how. I wish he'd try, though. Anything's worth trying, right? He's the last hope we have. He's the only one who can save you now."

And he laughed a little, a squeaky, tinny giggle that felt strange and sounded wrong.

"Except I have to go find him first. He ran off. I should keep him on a lead so he doesn't get lost."

He felt lightheaded, so with a quick glance to L'Erena's ruined face he rested his head beside her shoulder on the bed. He let his tears seep softly into the plasticy hospital sheet, let an odd feeling that wasn't quite unfamiliar overtake him. His hand stayed interlocked with hers, smooth skin against rough textures that soon he barely even registered. He didn't know how long he lay beside her body; time itself seemed to have simply melted away.

It was a beep that broke him from his reverie. He glanced up to see a beat fade from the heart monitor. He thought it was some kind of mistake, until another blip sounded, then another and another.

Lumaira stared at the monitor as L'Erena's pulse solidified and steadied, then back at the girl. And sure enough, her chest was rising and falling, if minutely, to a stable rhythm.

"L-L'Erena?"

The girl coughed a little, and lay still. And Lumaira could _see_ the burns receding to the expansion of clear skin. Lumaira glanced around the ward, but there was nobody there.

"Even?" He called uncertainly as L'Erena's fingers twitched a little in his hand and twisted to return the hold, just as tightly. There was no reply. Even wasn't here. So how…?

He turned back to L'Erena just as she coughed again and screwed her eyes tightly shut before carefully prising them open. He might have been smiling, he might have been _grinning_ but he wasn't sure, he had no idea. Everything simply seemed surreal, dreamlike. Lumaira didn't want it to be a dream. If L'Erena was alive he wanted her to stay alive, not to be woken up by a painful, horrific truth.

They peered at each other for a moment, one through foggy confusion and the other through eyes damp with tears.

"Lumaira?" L'Erena eventually croaked. And Lumaira fell back down to reality, and his whole body said to him that _this was real_ and he knew he was grinning, that everything had been fixed, that things were going to be okay again.

"You're alive," He said, because that was all he _could_ say, however insane it was, whatever had made that insanity possible. She laughed a little at him, voice still weak - but there, _alive_, true to the steady blip blip blip of the heart monitor.

"Yeah. And you're glowing."

"Well, I-" Lumaira began before he'd registered what L'Erena had said, then frowned a little at her when he realised she'd made no sense.

"I mean it," She said again. "You're glowing. Like. Pink."

Lumaira glanced down at his own quivering hands. Sure enough, a slight aura was surrounding his skin, fading quickly.

"What the-"

There was no answer, not even once the unreal radiation had dispersed to Lumaira's usual salmon tone.

"Where's Even?"

"He's not here."

L'Erena, face clear from the hideous burns that had once marred her, stared at Lumaira. He stared back.

"It's you." She finally said, just as he came to the same conclusion.

"It's me."

There was another silence, one filled with the whirring of backwards realisations.

"Oh my God," L'Erena finally said. "Oh my God, Lulu, you're magical."

It seemed to break the tense silence; the serious atmosphere suddenly snapped.

"Oh my God."

And they fell into a tight embrace, both laughing until tears that weren't from pain rolled down their cheeks.

"I knew it," L'Erena was giggling, her voice stronger every second, "Oh God, Lulu, I knew it, you're a fucking _fairy_."

They were only sobered by a confused nurse popping into the room with a clipboard, wondering what the fuss was. They promised they'd quieten down and she left them, none the wiser to L'Erena's sudden return from death.

"Even," Lumaira said after L'Erena had changed her mind and decided that he was some kind of gay unicorn, "I have to go find Even. I must've brought him back, too. You stay here. I'll be back."

But L'Erena swung her legs out from the hospital bed anyway.

"I'm coming with you," She said fiercely. "I feel fine. Where the hell are my clothes?"

* * *

Even skidded around the last corner, gasping for breath, just as he saw a familiar figure leave the hospital entrance. He was in a hurry, glancing around - but as soon as he plucked Even out of the constant comings and goings of the hospital, he diverted his course and rushed over.

"Even!" Lumaira exclaimed immediately, practically crashing into the other boy. "Even, oh God, Even, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I was just upset and I'm so sorry and-"

Even shushed him, one hand flattening his ruffled hair.

"I need to see L'Erena," He said urgently, prising Lumaira away from him and making his way to the hospital's doors. "This is important, I think that I can fix her."

But Lumaira shook his head.

"She's alive," He said, eyes suddenly bright as he more or less dragged Even up the stairs. "You know we all thought there was something weird about you, to come back to life? It wasn't _you_, it was _me_!"

Even stopped, suddenly. Around them nurses hurried, relatives and friends mingled, patients hobbled to and fro. Lumaira looked at her, seriously.

"I brought L'Erena back to life. And I was the one who brought you back, too."

Even honestly did not know what to say. For several moments they studied each other in a silence uncharacteristic for the bustling corridor, before Even reluctantly looked away.

"I'm sorry," Lumaira said awkwardly. As if he needed to _apologise_ for saving Even's existence itself.

He shook his head.

"No. I should be thanking you. I… I was being selfish."

His thoughts returned to the photograph on the mantelpiece, the wall in his room tacked up with his achievements, now useless. And he thought about the caption, _in loving memory_, and he truly did feel selfish. He'd thought only of himself, of his own spiralling depression, and brutally ignored all the people who'd cared, who _would have_ cared, if only he'd spoken up and asked for help.

Lumaira stared at him for a moment, as though he could hardly believe what he was hearing, but then his face cracked into a grin and his arms looped around the taller boy, pulling him into a tight hug.

"That's all over now," He said softly. "Come on, let's go see L'Erena. Her family is with her, and we're family.

Even let him be led up the stairs and into the hospital ward. L'Erena - despite her explicit demands - was lying in bed with the nurses running through the last of a hundred or more checkups, her parents at her side. Lumaira slipped in with Even and quietly took his place at one side of the bed.

"Hey,"

L'Erena smiled tiredly.

"Hello, you."

Lumaira half flopped onto the bed, laying his cheek on the mattress and yawning.

"I feel sleepy," He announced, contentedly closing his eyes. Even was beside him in a plastic chair, holding one hand strong out of sight. And L'Erena looped her arm around his neck, toying with his hair, and they were both _there_ and they were _his_ and Lumaira was happy.


	10. Chapter 10

A week later and the three of them had found their way across the sloping reserve down to the fjord, the weather pleasant and the water clear. Lumaira hadn't been able to heal L'Erena completely: bandages still snaked along her arms and across her chest - but she was alive and she was smiling and that was all he could possibly ask for.  
The conversation had been a curious mixture between inane schoolfriend gossip and theories of Lumaira's magical powers, but now they'd settled on the grassy bank it had lulled into a comfortable silence. Lumaira, kicking ripples across the water with his toes, was the first to speak.  
"Well, at least that's a few questions answered."  
"Hardly," L'Erena scoffed. "Before it was what's fucked up about Even. Now it's what's fucked up about you."  
But Lumaira shook his head.  
"I've been thinking. Before we didn't have any clue at all, and now we know for sure that it's me, and that it's some kind of magic. You said I glowed pink, right? Well, that rules out zombies, robots and aliens."  
"And now we're into the realm of elves and unicorns and fairies."  
Lumaira sighed a little, turning back to the water.  
"Yeah."  
"And besides," L'Erena continued, scratching aimlessly at her arms, "That still doesn't explain the car."  
"Maybe Even's also secretly Superman."  
"What, and you're his anti-kryptonite?"  
Lumaira glanced up at Even and smiled a little. He'd told L'Erena when she was still in the hospital; she'd been half delirious from drugs and exhaustion but it felt wrong for her not to know. Even though they'd done nothing but cuddle a little longer than usual and L'Erena laughed at him for not even rounding first base. It was right that way.  
"Maybe I'd like that."  
And he stood from the water's edge and padded over to Even, looping his arms around the tall boy's waist. He was half requited.  
"D'you ever think we'll find out?" He asked eventually. For a few minutes, nobody said anything until Even coughed a little and spoke up.  
"Lumaira, I don't think you're human."  
Both L'Erena and Lumaira stared at him like he was insane. He sounded too serious to be joking, like L'Erena's idle comments of Lumaira being a leprechaun with gigantism or secretly a ghost. Eventually Lumaira managed a strangled;  
"Why?"  
"Think about it," Even said, gesturing to Lumaira. "You clearly have some kind of supernatural ability above and beyond the capabilities of a human being."  
"But that doesn't mean I'm like, an alien or anything," Lumaira protested. "And I have a _mum_. And if she was an alien she would have told me when I started bringing people back from the dead."  
Even sighed a little.  
"But what about your father."  
A long pause. Even continued.  
"Lumaira, you've never met him. And you told me yourself that after he left your mother she never saw him again. He disappeared, so to speak."  
"That was because he was a heartless, deceptive bastard," Lumaira spat, eyes narrowing. His sudden change of tone threw Even off a little: Lumaira was incapable of anger. Except, it seemed, when directed at his father.  
"Hear me out," Even said haltingly. "It's the best theory I have right now. Don't you think it's a bit odd that he managed to disappear like that? Didn't your mother know where he lived? What about his friends and family, didn't she know any of them to ask where he was? Couldn't she have tracked him down?"  
Lumaira helplessly shook his head. He didn't know.  
"Do you know how they met?"  
"Yeah," Lumaira said quietly. "Mum was carrying some books home from the library and she tripped and fell and he caught her. They went out for coffee and she says it was love at first sight. What are you trying to say?"  
Even pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose  
"I'm just saying that there's a possibility that your father wasn't human."  
"So he was an alien?" L'Erena guessed.  
"Or some kind of supernatural being. I'm not sure."  
"That's stupid," Lumaira said fiercely, glaring with fists clenched at the still water.  
"Have you got anything better?" Even snapped. Lumaira hung his head.  
"Admittedly, no..."  
"It would explain a lot though, don't you think? How he literally appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as suddenly? Unless there are some highly unusual events in your childhood you haven't told us, Lumaira, I'd say that your powers are inherited from your father."  
"No!" Lumaira yelled, louder than he expected. Even actually flinched at the sudden sound, at Lumaira tearing himself away. "No! I don't want to _be_ like him!"  
And he stood in mortified rage for a few seconds before crumpling back down onto the grass.  
"There has to be some other reason."  
L'Erena splashed over and cupped her hand over Even's ear.  
"Hint:" She whispered, "Lumaira hates his Dad. Don't mention him under any circumstances."  
Even huffed a little, batting her away and pushing his glasses back up his nose.  
"Lumaira, calm down. I'm just trying to approach this scientifically-"  
"Because _resurrection_ makes _perfect_ sense!" Lumaira exclaimed. He made the mistake of glancing up and letting Even see his tears, and before he knew it Even had paddled over to the bank and pulled Lumaira into a hopelessly awkward hug.  
"Please. It's the closest answer we've got. I know it's hard; I'm not exactly on great terms with my parents either."  
He waited until Lumaira had stopped crying before he pulled away.  
"Look," He said awkwardly, "I know this is going to sound like I was on drugs, but. I think I've met your father."  
Lumaira stared at him.  
"How?"  
"The day L'Erena died, remember I ran away? And I came here. Well, I went to my old house first but after that I came here. And it does sound stupid, but I could have _sworn_ that I heard a voice. And it sounded like you. But older. I think it was him."  
The silence extended forever as Lumaira and L'Erena both privately considered this.  
"Right now," L'Erena said finally, "Nothing seems any more implausible than the truth."  
Even let out a sigh.  
"He didn't say anything useful. But he did speak. Which means, if my theories are correct, he's either got some kind of psychic ability or is some form of spirit. Capable of taking on a human form."  
"You didn't see him?"  
"Not really. It was all a kind of blur. And, well, I was sort of screaming at nothing. I _could_ have been imagining it, but... it felt real. Like waking up in a coffin."  
"Like I said," L'Erena murmured, "It makes just as much sense as everything else."  
They both happened to glance at Lumaira, who'd been silent since Even had spoken. He was staring blankly at his hands, limp in the clumps of grass.  
"Lumaira, are you okay?"  
Lumaira looked up, a fierceness in his eyes that Even was unfamiliar with.  
"I want to meet him."

* * *

Two weeks later and Lumaira still had the photograph of his father clenched in his hand, phone lying uselessly in the other. Even, behind him, was making a haphazard dinner for three with inexperienced clumsiness despite Lumaira's precise instructions. They were waiting for the phone to ring and had been waiting ever since they'd skidded home from a day at the aquarium up in town. It wasn't until Even was plonking badly cooked noodles into bowls that the phone jolted to life. Immediately, it was pressed to Lumaira's ear.  
"Yes?"  
A silence.  
"Oh. Oh, okay. Sorry to bother you. Never mind."  
Lumaira put the phone down and shook his head.  
"Nothing?"  
"Nothing."  
They'd been looking for Lumaira's father. They were doing all they could, calling up the hospital where he'd been born fourteen years ago and asking around all of Naminé's friends - but there wasn't even so much as a shred of a lead. Every pointless call solidified Even's theory: there had to be something more to Lumaira's father than met the eye.  
Lumaira sighed, propping the photograph up on the table. It was in a simple wooden frame, a dusty brunette and a smiling blonde occupying its glassy rectangle.  
"What was his name, anyway?" Even asked as he set one of the bowls down in front of Lumaira. Lumaira sighed a little, listlessly plucking up his fork.  
"I don't know his surname. Not even Mum knew. But his first name was Marluxia."  
"Marluxia," Even repeated thoughtfully. "I've never even heard that name before." And he paused for a moment, because talking about Lumaira's father was always a difficult subject, "Maybe it wasn't his name at all."  
"Don't," Lumaira hissed. "It's the only thing I've got."  
Even sat down and ate, slowly and thoughtfully. It wasn't until Naminé had come and gone in an overslept rush that he sat up suddenly.  
"Lumaira."  
"Huh?"  
Lumaira was in the middle of battling with a forkful of noodles and most of them splashed back into his bowl as he looked up, too quickly.  
"Your dreams." Even said in a far away voice that meant he was just realising something important. "Remember up on the hill when we were talking about your dreams? Ages ago. Before L'Erena died."  
Lumaira nodded a little, frowning in confusion.  
"Yeah?"  
"You said that you dreamt that people watched you-"  
"Yeah..."  
"- And one of them looked like your father..."  
"One of them looked like my father," Lumaira echoed numbly, gears almost visibly ticking in his mind. Even looked at him, meaningfully.  
"It can't just be a coincidence." And he paused for a long time, staring into space. "They might not be dreams at all."  
"You're saying that my father's been watching me in my sleep."  
"My theory is that there's some reason why he left," Even said slowly, the words slipping from his mouth as they occurred to him. "Hear me out: I don't think he left because he wanted to but because he _had_ to."  
Lumaira sighed, pushing his now empty bowl away from him.  
"It's not like I'll ever find out," He whispered, voice weak.  
Even watched him for a few moments and then gently pulled Lumaira into a hug. The boy cried, openly and without respite, until the doorbell rang to herald L'Erena's arrival.

* * *

Lumaira settled into a listless depression ill suited to his rosy cheeks and colourful attire. He still smiled, but he smiled less; he was still bubbly but bubbly like a soft drink going flat. Even tried to comfort him but Even didn't know what to do and even though they still shared a bed their hugs became the bad kind of awkward and now more often than not Even's advances were rebuked.  
Even L'Erena seemed at a loss; the summer holidays were slipping away and they still hadn't been to the beach or had a mass water fight with all the boys from school or watch movies all night long or a hundred other things that Lumaira just didn't seem interested in.  
"Come on, Lulu, cheer up,"  
A Tuesday and Naminé was in bed, the housework left to her son and his friends. The kitchen was a mess from hurried nights and busy days so the three of them had set about washing dishes, restocking the fridge and cleaning the work surfaces together. L'Erena was babbling on about boys and horror movies and returning from the grave, and even Even was making an effort in the conversation. Lumaira was silent.  
When she received no reply, L'Erena sighed and set down her sponge, wiping her soapy hand across Lumaira's cheek.  
"Blue face. You don't want to end up like Even, do you."  
And she laughed shortly at the tall blonde until he forgave her with a roll of his eyes, and turned back to Lumaira.  
"Seriously, Lulu. I know it's a bit of a shock but we've just gotta get on with it, you know? We're all alive and we're all safe and that's what matters."  
Lumaira frowned, letting his cloth hang limp over the corner of the counter.  
"He should have told Mum."  
Lumaira had become almost infatuated with his father ever since he'd brought L'Erena back; if he mentioned a man it was Marluxia.  
"You know, we haven't actually really talked to Naminé about this," Even piped up from his place restacking tins in the corner.  
"What do I say to her?" Lumaira demanded hopelessly. "Oh, hello Mum, did you know that you potentially fell in love with a supernatural being with the power to bring people back from the dead, who also happened to pass those powers onto his son?"  
A long pause that L'Erena broke.  
"Good as any."  
"If she knew," Lumaira continued, voice back to its normal level, "She would have said something when Even came back. She would have done. Right?"  
"She probably had no prior knowledge of the situation," Even said, "But she's got to have her theories. You don't witness the resurrection of two people without having suspicions. There's a chance she's coming to the same conclusions herself."  
Lumaira glanced momentarily out of the window to watch summer birds pinwheel in the sky. The feeder outside, stocked with breadcrumbs, boasted half a dozen tits chattering to one another as they ate their fill. Everything seemed so normal.  
"I'm scared," He said eventually.  
"You're always scared of something," L'Erena scoffed, and Lumaira smiled briefly at the joke - funny because it was true - before falling foul once more of a solemn expression.  
"I mean it, though. I..."  
He looked meaningfully at his hands. Pale palms, creased with lines just like any other. Deceptively normal.  
"I don't even know what this is. I can't control it. What if... what if something happened? What if I hurt somebody?"  
L'Erena climbed over Even's tins to give Lumaira a hug.  
"It's okay," She murmured. "Nothing's going to happen. Everything's going to be fine from now on. You might not even use your powers again."  
For the time being, Lumaira seemed placated. But after L'Erena had gone home and Even had crawled sleepily into bed, he found Naminé - just getting up - and tugged her into a kitchen chair.  
"I need to talk to you."  
Naminé glanced over at the photograph in its tidy frame, still on the table, and back to Lumaira, levelling him with a steady gaze.  
"Yes," She said. "I know."


	11. Chapter 11

He started at the beginning: with Even's suicide and the memories of the young boy's body, fragile and broken, in clotted, darkened blood. With the horror, the curling, ugly, helpless flash of pain in his stomach, the distant screaming and crying in the ambulance to the hospital. Then he days of numbness between the death and the funeral, when time carried on ticking and classmates carried on laughing and Lumaira was stuck in limbo waiting for closure. Then the funeral with only family to attend, and watching the coffin be lowered into the grave in the pouring rain. Even's mother's crying face. She had seemed shocked, Lumaira recalled now, that her one beloved son could be gone so suddenly of his own accord. The guilt. The kneeling in the mud, begging for some kind of release, conclusion, a second chance; with Even pale and ghostlike, limbs like bones and eyes like hollow, deadened sockets. Then the months that followed nursing Even back to health and into _love_, and finally L'Erena's death – and resurrection.  
Throughout this, Naminé was silent. She watched him with blank, secluded eyes.  
"It was me," Lumaira finished, finally, once every painful and inexplicable memory was recounted in its entirety. "We all thought that it was Even who was special, but it was _me_. I brought Even back. I fixed his scars, and the car – I must have somehow stopped the car through him. And L'Erena; I brought her back, too."  
Still, Naminé did not speak. She hadn't rebuked Lumaira's claims, no matter how outlandish they must have seemed, but neither did she speak. Lumaira swallowed thickly, preparing to tackle the crux of the situation: why he, Lumaira, had the ability to bring people back from the dead.  
"Even thinks it's something to do with Dad."  
"Yes," Naminé said gently, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I daresay it is."  
She stood carefully so that her chair didn't scrape against the floor tiles, and pulled Lumaira into a hug. He clung to her, desperately, the only thing that still felt real and secure in his crumbling little world.  
"He was always different," Naminé murmured into Lumaira's hair when the silence spanned three, four minutes. "Always special."  
"Did he ever tell you anything? About being able to revive people?" Lumaira asked, swallowing thickly. He didn't like to think that his father was anything more than he had always imagined - a heartless, cruel man with no care in the world but for himself. It had shaped Lumaira's past, his personality. But what if Even was right? What if he hadn't left of his own volition, but was forced? What if he really wasn't dreaming when those silvery people visited him in the night? What if Marluxia had been watching over him all this time, protecting him, loving him, and he'd-  
The thought was too alien to grapple with.  
"No," Naminé was murmuring. "But I put two and two together. It all makes sense now."  
_No, it doesn't_, Lumaira wanted to reply - but Naminé was pulling away, continuing her preparations for the night.  
"Thank you for being honest," She said finally as she was packing her back. Lumaira forced a smile, stifling a sleepy yawn.  
"Thanks for believing me."  
Lumaira hugged his beloved mother one more time, and ran upstairs to where Even was reading by the bedside lamp. He crawled into bed next to the taller boy, pulling his glasses off his nose and gently prising the books from his fingers, and together they snuggled down to sleep in the darkness.

* * *

As the week drew to a close, the late August heat nearly unbearable, the three of them found themselves spending longer and longer sheltering in the shade of the sweeping boughs of the willow tree by the little fjord in the reserve, sustained by flasks of fruit juice and half-melted chocolate bars. Lumaira and L'Erena had always liked the place, but it was Even who dragged them back time and time again. As out of place as he looked with his trousers rolled up to his knees, his pale feet bare and clinging to the rocks beneath the water, he seemed somehow at peace, eyes closed and head cocked up to the sky.  
"He's out there," He'd say periodically, when the idle conversation of boys and girls and shops and life drifted to natural lulls. "He's out there somewhere. We just have to find him."  
"I wish he'd come back," Lumaira, making daisy chains or catching the little freshwater fish and plopping them into jam jars, would reply. "To me. To Mum."  
L'Erena, perched in the branches of the tree with her nose in a book, would laugh.  
"Hey, I have an idea. Let's stop moping about a guy we never knew. We have lives to live, here!"  
Even Lumaira could not dispute this, and soon enough they'd paddled up to the swing over the river and were shoving each other about on the precarious ropes. Lumaira's shirt came off as soon as he fell into the water, and it didn't take long for L'Erena to have stripped down to her swimming costume.  
"Come on, Even, your shirt's so wet it's practically see-through anyway. You might as well take it off."  
But Even stayed stubbornly clothed, even when Lumaira sat on his lap and kissed his nose, hands damp and cool against his hips. L'Erena called him a prude and he made no attempt to disagree; then she sensed something in Lumaira's dreamy expression and, finding her shoes, tramped off into the nearby woodlands under the pretence of finding some berries to eat.  
For a few moments, the two boys stayed still, listening only to the chirping crickets and song birds in the sky.  
"It's Friday today, isn't it?" Even asked eventually as he shifted under Lumaira's weight. Lumaira nodded, tucking his head beneath Even's chin.  
"Uh-huh."  
"There's, um, there's somewhere I want to go tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd come with me."  
"Sure," Lumaira said without hesitation. "Where is it? Can Rennie come too?"  
Even shook his head.  
"I want it to be just the two of us. And it's... well, I want to go visit my grave."  
Lumaira didn't really understand, but he nodded anyway.  
"Alright."  
"Thanks."  
And then L'Erena came crashing back through the trees, spilling fat summer blackberries onto their laps, and their laughter seemed to echo all afternoon, even after Lumaira and Even had crept back indoors to finish all the housework before Naminé woke up.

* * *

Even and Lumaira left at eleven the next day, with sandwiches in Lulu's falling-apart rucksack, to walk into town and down the country lane that took them to the church graveyard where Even had almost been buried.  
"D'you remember the first night?" Even asked as they turned out of one of the back alleys into the park next to the graveyard. "You know, after my funeral?"  
Lumaira nodded, shifting the weight of his rucksack on his shoulder.  
"How could I forget?"  
"You passed out," Even stated, almost thoughtfully. Lumaira shivered, recalling the sodden graves and the bone-white fingertips, and the fear.  
"I was terrified."  
"I was pretty scared too," Even admitted, and then they were turning into the cemetery, looking over the newest graves in search of Even's name. And there, on a wooden cross in place with a little plaque in the centre, in temporary place of a proper stone, lay Even's empty coffin, the dirt packed down - and the flowers still fresh.  
Even sat down, reached over and picked up one of the roses. Lumaira noticed after a moment that tears were dripping down his face, the petals of the rose quivering a little as his hands shook.  
"I miss them," He said softly. "I miss them so much."  
"Your parents?"  
"Y-yeah."  
Lumaira reached out to brush his fingertips against the back of Even's hand where his skin was dry and cracked from the summer heat.  
"You'll see them again one day."  
"Yeah," Even said after a moment. "Yeah, I... maybe soon." And he restlessly pulled one of the rose's petals away, running his fingers over its silky surface. "Maybe... maybe in twenty minutes or so."  
"What?"  
"Well," Even said in a voice barely above a whisper, plucking thorns from the rose. "When L'Erena was in the hospital, I... you know I ran to the reserve? And before that I went back to my old house, and... and I left a note. For my parents. I asked them to meet me here today."  
Lumaira glanced around; the cemetery was empty.  
"I don't think they'll come, though," Even added in a croaky whisper, and began to cry again. Lumaira habitually held him close and there they stayed, locked in each other's arms, for several minutes.  
"You've still got me," He murmured comfortingly, "Me and Mum and Rennie."  
Even nodded, but didn't reply, glancing nervously towards the gate as the seconds ticked by.  
"They might not even have read the letter," He said after a few tense minutes. "I mean, they probably wouldn't have come if they had. It was a long shot anyway. It doesn't matter."  
But it _did_ matter: Lumaira could tell from the way every fibre in Even's body quivered with fear and anticipation, the shortness of his breath and the prickling of his blunt fingernails against Lumaira's back. And when, at one o'clock precisely, a tall and lone figure appeared at the gate, Even stood quite abruptly, falling away from Lumaira's grasp. The woman, of large but slim build, seemed to walk in slow motion, as though through treacle, weaving through the ageing graves almost as if she were asleep. Even stepped forward once as though to run and meet her, but hesitated; it was only when she was just a few feet away that he dared break from his post, approaching her as apprehensively as she him.  
"Even?"  
There was a moment of silence, of _is this a miracle or is this a dream_, and then Even spoke.  
"Mother."  
She reached up almost automatically, brushed the back of her hand against the rough skin of Even's cheek.  
"Oh, sweet Jesus Christ," She murmured. "Oh, thank the Lord. It's really you. You're alive."  
And she pulled him by his shoulders into a crushing, desperate embrace.  
Lumaira, feeling intrusive, averted his eyes and instead watched the flocks of summer birds wheeling in the sky. Even was sobbing openly; his similarly emotional mother holding him suffocatingly tight and stroking his flaxen hair. Lumaira, glancing back for the briefest of moments, felt a pang of jealousy - where was his joyful reunion with his alien father, so long lost and so intricately connected to Even's life and Lumaira's love? But he quickly suppressed the emotion; this was Even's moment, not his. Marluxia, no matter how profoundly his legacy remained, was gone.  
The Carlisles had broken from their embrace now, although they still stood close, speaking in hushed tones. Lumaira waited patiently for them to finish, raiding his head only when Even turned to speak with him.  
"So I guess I'll see you around, then."  
Something snapped inside Lumaira's head, something that said this wasn't how he had expected the story to end.  
"What?"  
"I'm going home," Even said.  
No, Lumaira wanted to argue, home was in the little terraced house with Naminé, not a herald back to Even's old life, not with parents he hadn't seen for months. Home was with him, Lumaira. But the blonde boy had a strange expression of relief and hope on his face, reaching out already to grasp his mother's hand.  
"Oh," He said instead, fighting down the strangled choke of his stomach. "Oh, okay."  
"Can we have a minute, please?" Even asked, turning briefly to his strikingly green-eyed mother. She nodded, stepping away to inspect the other graves. Even watched her for a moment, almost sadly, before stepping close enough to Lumaira to hold the younger boy's hands, and clearing his throat.  
"Thank you," He said haltingly, "For everything. I can't even begin to express how much I owe you."  
"It's alright," Lumaira began to say, feeling a blush rising to his cheeks, but Even shushed him.  
"And these past few months. I know I've been difficult, but it's been wonderful. All of it. Probably the best of my life, and... well, I couldn't stay at your house forever anyway, and you're such a wonderful friend but I need a family. _My_ family."  
Lumaira rested his head on Even's shoulder so that the taller boy couldn't see that his eyes were prickling with tears, and thought about Naminé, and Marluxia.  
"Yeah," He said, "I understand."  
"Thank you," Even murmured again, and for a few moments they shared the afternoon sun and the still silence of the cemetery. Then Even, who had been shyly resting his hands on Lumaira's hips, pulled him into a hug and whispered so quietly that Lumaira hardly heard him speak at all.  
"I love you."  
Lumaira smiled. Things were going to be okay. Things are going to be better than okay.  
"I love you too," He whispered back, the ground feeling real and secure beneath his feet, the air thick and heavy around him. And then with a surreptitious kiss to his cheek, Even pulled away.  
"We can meet up tomorrow," He said, "Maybe we can go down to the reserve again."  
"Rennie wants to go to the beach. We only have a week left before school starts again, and she says that if we do enough jobs for him, her Dad'll give us money for the train down there."  
What L'Erena's family was going to do now that the petrol station had burned down was an open question, but in the meantime her father was busying himself salvaging what was left of their old lives from the wreckage. Lumaira had been down to see it; it was a surreal picture, produce still lining the shelves towards the back of the shop where the firemen had arrived just in time to save cans of fizzy pop and not L'Erena's life.  
"Okay. I'll come round tomorrow morning?"  
"Yeah, alright."  
And Even trotted after his mother away and out of the graveyard, leaving Lumaira to walk home alone.

* * *

(A/N: I feel a need for this, since Blackbird is nearing the end of its plot, and the entire story is absolutely riddled with inconsistencies and continuity errors, since I have been entirely making this up as I go along. I doubt that I'll ever revise this, but if I did there would be quite a few significant changes to several scenes. Anyway, I apologise for the flimsy plot and broken logic, and hope that you can enjoy the story with all its faults. Thank you!)


	12. Chapter 12

"Here I am."  
Spending the night alone in the house without Even by his side had been strange to Lumaira; he had tossed and turned restlessly under the heavy covers and shivered at the bright moonlight shining in through the cracks in his curtains. So it had been that around eleven he had pulled on a tatty pair of jeans and his favourite trainers, found his bag and filled it with a hastily-brewed flask of hot chocolate and biscuits from the cupboard, and stepped outside with a torch in his pocket for when the lampposts flickered. He passed others, occasionally, still on the streets, some with drinks and cigarettes in their hands - but he smiled wanly at them as they, slouched against fences or perched on walls, watched him pass. Eventually, even the people disappeared as Lumaira reached the country track that would take him up to the reserve. Once, the night bus passed, its lethargic driver yawning and its seats empty bar a few sleeping passengers. Lumaira trudged on. The air wasn't cold; in fact, it still hummed gently with insects and even in just a flimsy jacket Lumaira couldn't feel the chill. He hardly even needed his torch: the full moon was bright, casting unearthly shadows across the open fields of the reserve. But he flicked it on anyway, because the warm light was comforting, and watching his own feet pace through the grass was somehow grounding, in a world that was changing too fast and too dramatically for Lumaira to find reassuring hold.  
He took the quick route down to the fjord, where Even had mentioned hearing voices. It was a long shot, maybe, in the middle of the night as Even slept in his own bed and Naminé worked tirelessly with late-night patients' ailments. But sometimes Lumaira felt like all he had left was long shots, hoping against hope that Even would find peace with his second chance, and L'Erena and her family would rebuild their lives, and Lumaira himself would, one day, come to understand the mystery that was his absent father and his own incredible powers.  
He stopped just short of the water, inspecting the way his torchlight flickered over its surface before switching it unceremoniously off and lying back in the darkness. There'd always been something special about this place, even before he had found himself spending half his summer playing in the shallow water and inspecting the little fish on Even's insistence. There wasn't a soul around; Lumaira was truthfully, honestly alone - and yet with nature surrounding him, he felt more at home than he had back at the house, shifting sleeplessly in his own bed.  
"Here I am."  
He seemed to speak autonomously, and in the silence his voice felt unnaturally loud. But, he reasoned, maybe somebody was listening. Maybe.  
"I'm waiting for you."  
Briefly, Lumaira wished that Even were with him, his long fingers with cracked nails tight against Lumaira's hand. But Even was at home now. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had stayed up late with his parents, speaking in hushed tones of all that had come Before and all that could be in the After. Perhaps he was lying awake, inspecting the patterns in the ceiling, mind toying with the image of a stocky, bubblegum-pink haired boy. This moment was for Lumaira to reflect alone, as faintly as the moonlight bounced off the trickling stream.  
"I know you're out there somewhere," He continued, bushing his hands over the grass, feeling daisies and dandelions bob beneath his skin. "You've been watching me. I know you have."  
But if Marluxia was listening, he was listening covertly; there was barely even the faintest tremor in the grass to signify that Lumaira wasn't just part of a pretty postcard, locked forgotten in somebody's drawer.  
"I just want a few minutes with you. That's all. I just want to talk to you for five minutes."  
Lumaira twisted, briefly, hoping that the flashes of movement he caught in his peripheral vision weren't just figments of his imagination.  
"Why did you leave?" He asked. "Where are you?"  
But the air remained still and silent, bar the scurryings of nocturnal creatures as they went about their business. Lumaira fell backwards and stared up at the starry sky, picking out constellations; a few he had known since he was a child, but more that Even had pointed out to him on the hot summer nights where thoughts of sleep were a hundred miles away. The earth was cool against his back, the texture of the grass at once familiar and strange. And Lumaira pictured his childhood, as the boy without a father. He remembered playing card games in the evenings with Naminé when they couldn't afford a television, meeting L'Erena's Dad and being amazed at this mythical, bearded creature with a grin on his face and deep sparkling eyes. Spending evenings down at the park with all the other kids before friends were for life and boys looked at girls with more than a passing eye. He thought about his first pet, a hamster, crying over its furry little body when inevitably it passed away. And he thought about his Grandparents, supporting their beloved daughter even through mistakes and heartbreak, offering money when she couldn't make ends meet and comfort when Lumaira was poorly and couldn't go to school. They lived a way away now, so Lumaira didn't see them very often, but they called every week still to make sure that everything was okay, and share anecdotes from their own lives of tending to increasingly achy knees and playing bingo with the other ladies on Tuesday afternoons.  
And Lumaira wondered what it would be like to be old. To be grown, to understand the world in all its imperfections; to work hard for a keep and to live in his own house, to raise a family, perhaps, to become wise and at peace, to watch the Earth spin with all its unimaginable momentum and complexity as he himself gradually ticked down to a stop.  
Slowly, Lumaira sat up and poured out a cup of hot chocolate, which he sipped pensively.  
"I suppose," He said slowly as he drank, rummaging around for biscuits, "I'll just have to say thank you and be on my way."  
Did it really matter so much who his father was? Would Even's body fall apart if Lumaira didn't know how he had brought him back in the first place?  
"But if you ever change your mind," Lumaira mused, pouring out the rest of the chocolate, "It'd be nice to know."  
He drank until there was nothing but damp crumbs in the bottom of his cup, then swirled it out in the stream and screwed it back onto the flask. Then he picked up his torch, pulled himself to his feet and, inspecting the valley one last time for a familiar figure, trudged home to creep back into his bed before Naminé returned from work. 

* * *

"Hey, Lumaira, I'm sorry, I can't come round today. Mum wants me to stay at home with her, and, um, well, I think she wants to spend some time with me. Just us. Dad's going to work, but she took the day off, so."  
At seven thirty in the morning, Lumaira found himself sitting cross-legged on his kitchen floor eating toast, and listening to Even's crackling voice through the phone.  
"Mkay."  
"I told her I wanted to go out with you guys tomorrow, though. I think she figures that if I've been living with you for months without her supervision, it's safe to let me out of her sight for a day."  
"Aha, yeah."  
"Are you okay?"  
Although there was a perfectly good table which Lumaira used most of the time, sometimes he liked to sit on the floor like a small trampish creature and eat without pomp or ceremony. He wasn't sure why.  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about how ages ago, I figured that it was okay to go make you breakfast for the same reason. You know, you woke up before me and were reading."  
Even didn't speak for a moment.  
"Yeah," He said finally. "Yeah, I... I remember that."  
Lumaira, mouthful of toast, considered this.  
"I'm glad that part's over," He said. At the other end of the phone, Even hummed in agreement.  
"Yeah. Things are better now."  
"A lot better?"  
"Oh, please. I'm getting enough of this from my parents. I mean, it's nice to know they care about me, but I don't need asking if I'm okay every five minutes."  
Lumaira wasn't sure if he was allowed to laugh, but when Even did - a small, awkward and adorable noise - he was happy to join in.  
"We can go up to the reserve tomorrow though, maybe."  
"You and your reserve," Lumaira chided playfully, not caring to mention the hours he'd spent by the fjord, waiting for his absent father. There was a hesitation on Even's part, brief but telling.  
"I keep hoping-" He said, but stopped himself abruptly.  
"Hoping what?"  
"That maybe if we spend enough time there, we might... might catch him."  
Him. Lumaira immediately felt grateful that at least when it came to Marluxia, he had a kindred spirit. His Mother seemed content with what little she knew, and L'Erena, now live and well, seemed to have barely a care for the supernatural forces behind her resurrection.  
"I mean," Even continued in a faraway voice, "All three of us owe our existence to him in one way or another. I don't know about you, but I want to know more."  
"I haven't given up on him," Lumaira reminded Even softly, pushing cold toast around his plate. "Mum's being totally useless about it all, but I still want to meet him."  
"Yeah," Even said, and then- "I haven't told Mother about you. She thinks that God brought me back and. Well, I think that's explanation enough for her. No need to overcomplicate things, I guess."  
Lumaira giggled a little in spite of himself.  
"So I'm God now?"  
"Ahaha, yeah, I guess."  
"I wish he'd left something," Lumaira said eventually after more crackly static. "A letter, or an heirloom, or something. He must have known that this was going to happen. Or prepared for it, at least."  
"Did you ask Naminé about it?"  
"No, but she would have said."  
"Then we're running around in circles." Even said dully.  
"Yeah, we are." Lumaira miserably agreed. They each considered this privately, the silence between them easy and familiar. Lumaira listened out for the sounds of Even's house: his Mother's voice asking faraway things like if Even wanted tea, the click and hiss of the boiling kettle, the dim tune of classical radio. Even's steady breaths falling heavy into the mouthpiece. Lumaira suddenly wanted the boy reassuringly close in his arms, to feel the proof of his existence tangible by his skin.  
"Do you want to come around tonight?" Even, who might have been thinking the same things, asked. Lumaira hadn't quite realised how much he had longed to share his bed with Even, until he found himself laughing with relief.  
"Yes. Of course."  
"It feels strange sleeping in this bed again," Even added in a voice that was small, and a little lonely. "I... I think I'd feel better if you were here."  
Lumaira recalled the first days (or maybe the last days) when the image of Even's corpse was still so vivid in his mind, the putrid stench of blood filling his nostrils long after the body had been assigned to the morgue.  
"Yeah," He said. "Yeah, me too."  
Even laughed a little nervously.  
"Sometimes I feel like I still need you so much, Lu."  
Lumaira wondered if Even would ever understand just how important it was for him to know that the older boy was alive and healing, every second of every day, and how in the months since his funeral Even had become so irrevocably entangled in Lumaira's life.  
Perhaps, given that without him Even's life had been hollow and his body dead.  
"I need you too," Lumaira admitted, blushing. And they shared their confessions like children over secret crushes, each imagining perfectly in their minds the other's shy little smile.  
"I have to go," Even said reluctantly once they'd said enough soppy sentences to make L'Erena gag. "Mother wants me to keep her company with the housework."  
Lumaira glanced up at the clock on the wall - he'd have to go soon too, to meet L'Erena.  
"Alright. I'll see you soon. I think we'll stop at five, so I can come round after that?"  
"That would be really nice," Even said, and Lumaira could just hear the other boy wanting to say _brilliant_ or _wonderful_, but not quite managing it in the end. "You know the way, right?"  
Lumaira still had every detail of that night painfully etched into his memory - he could remember how to get to Even's house.  
"Yeah. I'll be there."  
A pause, clatters in the house all that way away. And then, in a voice that was a little muddy like Even was cupping his hand around his mouth:  
"I love you,"  
Lumaira giggled sheepishly.  
"I love you too,"  
He listened to Even's house for a few more moments, and then the buzz of a dead line.  
Lumaira waited until Naminé came home then gave her a hug and left to meet L'Erena at the wreckage of the petrol station. 

* * *

Two days later, the three of them packed up their buckets and spades and towels, and took the train east to the nearest sandy beach, for fun and games and sun screen.  
"So, Even," L'Erena was saying as they ate their way through several bars of chocolate (on the logic that by the time they reached the beach, it would have all melted anyway - so it was only charitable to have it now). "Are you going back to school with us next week?"  
Even, also helping himself to chocolate, shook his head.  
"No. Mother doesn't think it'll be a good idea. You know, since everyone knew who I was and all. It'll cause too much of a fuss."  
"Imagine that," Lumaira (on Even's lap) giggled, "Imagine everyone's faces when he walked in. I mean, after everything that happened. The assembly and all."  
"You had an assembly about me?" Even asked. He sounded surprised, but then again he always sounded surprised when people talked about caring for him in the Before.  
"Well, they didn't actually mention your name, but everyone knew," L'Erena said, taking another enormous bite of chocolate. "Lumaira sobbed the whole way through it. Ruined my shirt." She did elaborate further, but her mouth was so stuffed that neither Even nor Lumaira had a clue what she said.  
"Well..." Even seemed to be at something of a loss. "Well, we also had an assembly when that really old teacher died, didn't we? A few years ago." And this seemed to satisfy him. "So I think I'm going to go to one of the grammar schools over on the outskirts of town, but not yet. Mother wants me to spend more time with the family first. Recovering."  
L'Erena laughed lightly, gazing out at the English countryside speeding past, the marching electricity pylons, the cattle and the wheatfields, speckled with the occasional blood red poppy.  
"So you'll have no excuse to go out with us."  
"I do," Even retorted petulantly. "It's called Lumaira. What kind of results did you get in your summer exams this year?"  
"Well, I had other things to worry about," Lumaira said, trying to sound put out: but he couldn't really feel insulted when Even or L'Erena insinuated that he wasn't as intelligent as they were, because it was true. "Mitigating circumstances."  
"You don't even know what that means," L'Erena teased idly - but then, quite suddenly, she stood up, grabbing her seat and staring intently ahead of them. "I can see the sea! We're close, we're close!"  
They erupted into a ruckus of excitement and laughter, too long cooped up in the midlands, watching the ocean's horizon bob in and out of vision as bushes, houses and trees sped past. And finally the train ground to a halt for them to climb off, and join other small packs of holiday-goers down to the beach.  
"Lumaira, you've got to wear your floppy hat. That's an order."  
"You can't order me to wear a hat-"  
"-Yes I can. Hop to it."  
They banked up near the sea wall, right under the sign that said "do not feed the seagulls", where the sand was the softest and the smell of seaweed wasn't too overpowering.  
L'Erena inhaled deeply, and let out a contented sigh.  
"So. Who's up for ice cream?"  
They wandered down to the van in the car park, Even and Lumaira, with L'Erena guarding the stuff and/or filling everyone else's shoes with sand.  
"I haven't been to the beach for a long time."  
"Me either," Lumaira said, digging his toes into the hot sand as they made their way back, hands full of newly acquired edible treasures. "Rennie and I wanted to go last year but we didn't have enough money, so we just gave up in the end. Hung around town all summer."  
"Did you have plans for this summer?" Even asked. He, actually, had donned Lumaira's hat; it cast dappled light on the boy's gaunt face which, when his expression had that openness that only showed when he didn't think anyone was looking, made him look something closely resembling attractive.  
"Oh, no," Lumaira said. "Well, not really. We were going to earn some pocket money at the petrol station, but obviously that fell through. Ahaha. Might have hung out with Rudy and Dilan, I guess."  
Even froze a little, bare feet just splashing through a rivulet running through the sand dunes into the sea.  
"I didn't know you were friends with them."  
Rudy and Dilan were two of the cool kids around school: Rudy because he was a smooth talker never anywhere without a trick up his sleeve, and Dilan because he was huge and (Lumaira hypothesised) had a lot of hair. L'Erena was on good terms with them because she had passing interests a little above her age and Dilan always got served; Lumaira hung around partly because she was friends with them, but also because they provided some protection from the sharp and occasionally homophobic tongues of their fellow students.  
"Well," Lumaira said reproachfully; "I mean, not really. L'Erena is, I guess. But they're just, you know."  
"They bullied me," Even said. He was looking out to sea, where ships bobbed on and off the horizon and nearby, swimmers paddled lazily in the windless waves. Lumaira wondered if it would be possible to hold the boy's hand, but considering that he was holding two very slippery looking ice creams, he doubted it. So instead he just looked meaningfully at him, a gesture that went by unnoticed.  
"They were sorry," He said eventually, remembering the two of them the night they found Even, faces pale and eyes hollow. "They…they were really sorry."  
Even glanced back.  
"Yeah," He said, like his mind was elsewhere. "They were there, weren't they? That night."  
"It was their idea."  
They walked a little further on, in silence, because if they stayed up to their ankles in the last vestiges of fresh water the ice creams would melt all over their hands and L'Erena would have their heads for a summer snack instead. Finally, it was Even who broke the pause.  
"Lumaira?"  
"Uh huh."  
"I don't want to, uh, ruin the day, but…why did you go along with them?" And Even took a deep breath. "It just doesn't seem like you at all, to have done something like that."  
They were close to L'Erena now. Lumaira jogged over to her, handed her the chocolate, mint and strawberry triple scoop ice cream she had requested, and with a few words to her, led Even down to the waterline, where bits of seaweed and shell were being washed up onto the shore in the receding tide.  
"The truth is, I did it because they said I was a pussy if I didn't go along with them."  
Even glanced at Lumaira, frowning.  
"That's it?"  
Lumaira hung his head, stared at the sand gently sucking at his feet.  
"Yeah."  
"Oh."  
"I know, I was kind of wondering if I could pull off a "I just felt like I needed to and it must have been fate" lie, too." Lumaira murmured. "But I was just afraid of being teased." And then: "I'm really sorry."  
Even was silent for a long time.  
"I kind of understand," He said finally. "I think we've all done things we're not proud of."  
Lumaira laughed timidly, and looked back at L'Erena - happily licking at her ridiculous ice cream.  
"Except maybe Rennie," He added. Even twisted around to glance back up the beach too; L'Erena seemed to notice, because she waved cheerily at them, and shouted something that they couldn't quite make out against the other children and adults playing on the beach.  
"I guess it's what makes us human."  
Lumaira, without really thinking, found himself curling his hand around Even's palm. The other boy's hand was hot and clammy from the heat, but it was comforting, somehow. Human.  
"Yeah," He agreed. And somewhere, deep inside himself, he wondered if Marluxia had once gazed out at the world with his hand holding tight to that special someone, and regretted and hoped, and loved. 

* * *

The next day was the last day of summer, and Lumaira kept finding bits and pieces of holiday homework he was supposed to have done, so they collected up all of his textbooks and school supplies, and made one last trek down to the reserve before school and hard work began anew and more important things stole away their attentions. They took the long route down to the fjord, just the way they did the first time they brought Even down all that time ago, dragging their feet in the hot summer sun. Lumaira, jogging to keep up with Even's long legs and L'Erena's purposeful stride, couldn't help but notice how much Even had changed in the months between his funeral and this late August afternoon. He still smiled awkwardly like he was having trouble remembering how, but the important thing was that he _smiled_; he seemed, somehow, to have grown into himself, his slim, tall figure and freckled face and impossibly bright bespectacled eyes. Things were not the way they had been: they were the way they ought to have been, and that was better.  
"Come on, slowpoke!"  
Lumaira skidded down the last patch of grass to reach the little bridge across the stream's boggy tributary, then walked with the other two to the fjord where they flopped down and unpacked the sandwiches Lumaira had made them (and which had inevitably been squashed in transit).  
"Can't wait for school, eh?"  
Lumaira laughed like he was trying (and failing) to be sarcastic.  
"The suspense is killing me."  
"Ahaha, tell me about it." L'Erena giggled, pulling off her shirt to reveal her bikini top underneath. Lumaira could still trace the faint shapes of the burns on her skin, but she had healed well, and while she'd always have scars she seemed strangely proud of them, showing them off to everyone she met. Lumaira had checked Even, too, and if he looked closely on the blonde's wrists he could just make out a patchwork of very faint lines. But he tried not to look.  
"I don't see what you're complaining about," Even said, sniffing, which earned him a light punch, and a charitable laugh. And school preoccupied their thoughts until the sandwiches were nothing but crumbs for the birds and L'Erena had migrated to the water.  
"So do you think it was really Marluxia you heard here?" She asked as she bent over to peer through the rippling water for good stones to skim.  
"I don't know," Even admitted. "It might have been, but I'm beginning to think I was just imagining things."  
"I wouldn't put it past you," L'Erena said, batting away midges. "Do we have any insect repellent? I'm going to be as mothbitten as an old coat if I'm not careful."  
Lumaira rummaged around in his dying backpack for the sticky little bottle, finally pulling it out of the depths of the front pocket and splashing over to L'Erena to give it to her.  
"C'mon, Even. Why don't you join us?"  
Even, long sufferingly, pulled off his shoes and waded out into the deeper water, where it lapped halfway up to his knee, and the current flowed faster.  
"I suppose it doesn't matter any more, does it?"  
"What, whether or not I get midge bites? Thanks, Even. I used to have great skin, _actually_."  
"I didn't mean that," Even said. "I meant about Lumaira's father."  
L'Erena glanced up at Lumaira, who was delicately balancing a glass jar in the stream in the hopes of catching a tiny fish or two. On hearing his name, he glanced bemusedly up, smiling a little.  
"Yes?"  
"About Marluxia," L'Erena said. She was watching him carefully, but all Lumaira did was shrug, nothing belying his thoughts but a slight depth of sadness to his eyes.  
"It would still be nice to meet him," He said, returning to his jar, "But... I've gone my whole life without him. I guess I can survive if he never bothers to turn up."  
"For all we know, he might well have just run off," L'Erena added. Lumaira, finally wedging the thing in between two rocks, splashed over.  
"It would be nice for Mum if he came back."  
But L'Erena was looking at him again, his mouth, his pink lips and the faintest hints of dimples in the crumples of his rosy cheeks when he smiled.  
"I don't know," She said at length. "I don't know. Maybe it's time she moved on, too, you know? He was never the be all and end all of everything. Sure, he was important, but… what's important now is what's here. Us."  
L'Erena was right. They were here, they were what was special. All Marluxia, whoever and whatever he was, had ever been to them was a ghost.  
And she looked up to the sky, and laughed.  
"We're here," She said, loudly. "We're here. And we're alive."  
Eyes shining, she turned back to Even and Lumaira, who had secretively been trying to hold each other's hands without the other noticing.  
"We're alive!"  
Lumaira laughed at her.  
"Rennie, have you gone mad?"  
L'Erena punched him in the shoulder.  
"Look, Lulu. Look at us all. You with your pink glowy magical powers, and me and Even. We ought to be dead, us two. And you should probably be a government secret."  
Lumaira stole a glance at Even, who was watching out for fish in the stream. But the other boy was grinning.  
"She's right, you know."  
Lumaira let himself laugh, with a smile that lingered on his face.  
"Yeah."  
"Yeah? Just yeah?" L'Erena said incredulously. "Come on, Lulu, we're alive! What more do we need?" And she took a deep breath and hollered up into the sky; "We're alive! We're _alive_!"  
"We're alive!" Lumaira echoed enthusiastically. And she, without restraint, called out again, dragging Even over to forcibly hold the boys' hands together, to sing up into the open air. The land around them was empty, and perfect for it; they yelled with all the joy and youthful passion they had in their hearts, and nothing mattered - nothing at all.  
High above them, blackbirds soared into the clouds, scattered, and disappeared.  
And Lumaira laughed, for Even, and for L'Erena, and for friendship and love, and for being nothing more perfect than alive.


End file.
